365 Days (Part 2) | ✓

303. Go Fly a Kite

303. Go Fly a Kite: Write about flying a kite.

My granddaddy can fix anything. Once, when I was a little girl, I had a snow globe. I loved this snow globe, and would carry it around with me everywhere. One day I dropped it, and it shattered into millions of pieces. I was so confident in my grandfather, though, that I reassuringly told people, "Don't worry. Granddaddy can fix it."

He missed his calling as an engineer. Give my granddaddy a problem and he can find a solution. It’s funny, because he can be quite gullible sometimes, but he's the most reasonable, logical man I know and will ever know. My own father, who is exceptionally handy with tools, can't even come close to my granddaddy. I will be spoiled when I get a boyfriend or husband and they can't just go into the barn and whip together a table for me.

Granddaddy loves planes. He was a pilot himself. He especially loves the Blue Angels, which are a Florida-based stunt flying team. We like to go and watch their shows. They're from Pensacola, which is a tiny coastal town facing the Gulf of Mexico. The beaches there are white and the water clear. It's a lovely place. We rent a condo, pack everyone into several cars, and road trip down there for the week. My brothers oftentimes bring friends with them, although sometimes they get relegated to the couch or an air mattress.

One year, one of my brothers brought their friend named Hunter along. Hunter also aspired to be a pilot. When we went to the impressive naval museum there, he bought a Blue Angels kite.

It was windy on the beach that day, and several of my brothers went outside to assist Hunter in the launching of this kite. To be honest, I was probably trying to get a rare shower in while they were all busy. Sharing a tiny bathroom with my five brothers and my grandparents was not the highlight of these vacations.

It only took one fly before the string to Hunter's kite got tangled.

My mom, whose experience with crochet makes her a whiz at untangling things, tried to straighten out that string. Eventually she was made to fix dinner by our growling stomachs and passed the knot off to me. I also have a talent to unraveling them. I didn't manage to do it.

The next day we continued to work on it. Hunter insisted he didn't want the string cut because it would shorten the line, even though it wouldn't make that much of a difference. No one was able to solve it. Taking a break, I went out onto the beach with the others.

When we came back, breathless, wet, and some of us sunburned, Hunter's kite laid neatly on the dining table. The knot was gone.

"Dad!" my mom exclaimed. "Did you fix it?"

"Oh, yeah," Granddaddy said, with a shrug. "It was easy."

"How'd you do it?" Mom asked.

He innocently replied, "I just cut the knot off and rolled the string back up."