10 years old. 1962

March was unusually warm. Kids were flying kites but nothing impressed Buttface and Crusty Johnson. They convinced their dad to build them an 8-foot box kite. He built it 8 foot square. He wanted the brothers to go to the moon... for some reason. Kite arrived by pickup truck at Birren Avenue. It drew a lively crowd of slack-jawed kids. Some kids were drooling with envy. Some kids were just bitter. I think those uncalled-for emotions were about to change.

The “kite string” was a rope about a mile long so it would reach the moon. The big kite finally lifted off in the gusty wind but only about 10 feet off the ground. Several young rocket scientists figured that the kite needed a tail to stabilize it on its way to the moon. Crusty volunteered to be the tail... he was always wanting to be the first kid on the moon. They tied him on the rope about three feet below the kite. We all cheered and encouraged him to write us a postcard when he got there. Crusty smiled and made a promise to us all that it would be the first thing he did when he hit the cheese ball!   

The rope was about a block long and held fast by six of the heavy-weight guys on Birren Avenue. In a flash, the big wind came out of nowhere. It was about 80 mph and it jerked Crusty into a dead dog position and dragged him on the street ripping his jeans and shirt to tiny pieces. The kite never got off the ground either! 50 yards of grinding the clothes off of Crusty was almost embarrassing to the ground crew. Crusty broke loose from the kite and lay there only in his underwear. Someone called the police and they tried their best to get some kind of information from Crusty. Crusty was awake but couldn’t speak. Frustrated, the cops drove away leaving Crusty whining like a run-over dog. This gave the rest of us a chance to come out of hiding in several bushes and from under dead cars . 

We got to him and drug him away to Merton Miles’s backyard. We clothed him in Merton’s sister’s sweat suit. He didn’t even care that they were pink!  That proved to us that he was an idiot at the moment and, I’d say kinda weak in the head. We burned the box kite and it rolled into a cut cornfield... which brought the fire department. Immediately we lost interest in flying to the moon in a kite. 

Later that afternoon we started our own private book club. We read and studied huge department store catalogs. We studied the women’s section the most. Crusty recovered very fast as we were very fond of the brassiere models, especially the ones with the “cross your heart” dangling types. Crusty perked up wearing the pink sweatpants, but we expected that. For crying out loud, we were all perking up!  We decided to study more often and become experts in women’s underwear.

That’s all folks.

Hug your kids and love those neighbors.

Nelly