Wonder Barbie Flies

My mother, I’ve been told, loved to plant things and watch them grow. While she was still pregnant with me she planted a Bridal Veil bush along-side Gram’s house. My mother did not live to see the bush, or me, grow, but grow we each did; neither of us giving much thought to the other until we met one sunny Saturday afternoon when I was six years old.

Shortly after that day began I was sent to my room to contemplate some error I had made. I can’t remember what the error was so I obviously didn’t contemplate it long. What I did do was grab one of my many, many Barbie Dolls, dress her in her Wonder Woman costume (complete with cape), and command her to fly. She didn’t.

I sat on my bed and contemplated making the doll fly. While I was thinking my gaze dropped to my tennis shoe. Tennis shoes have shoe strings. I promptly decided that a bit of string might be just the thing to help Wonder Barbie fly. I took the laces from my shoes, tied them together and looped one end around Barbie’s waist.

It took me only a couple of swings to realize that while my idea might work well in the front yard, it wasn’t goning to “fly” inside my bedroom without doing some sort of grown-up grumbling damage. Again I perched on the edge of my bed and contemplated. I really needed to be outside …. or maybe only Wonder Barbie needed to be outside. I turned my gaze to the window. I was two stories above the ground. Beyond the glass was endless space in which Wonder Barbie could fly.

My windows opened like French doors and swung inward. The screen unlatched and swung outward to the left. I dropped Wonder Barbie out the window. She swayed back and forth at the end of the string. The flying forward part was okay, but when she reached the end of her tether she flew backward with her cape flapping over her head. It was very un-super hero-ish.

I decided my arms just weren’t long enough. This time I didn’t have to sit and contemplate. I knew the solution. I took the lamp and whatnots from my bedside table and pushed it under the window. Then I climed up, braced my stomach on the window sill and launched Wonder Barbie. She swung in a very pleasant arc — and smashed face first into the building. That was decidedly un-super hero-ish. I needed a longer reach still.

The solution was obvious. I balanced with my knees on the window sill, reeled Wonder Barbie out and swung with all my might. She flew!

Unfortunately, so did I.

Wonder Barbie hit the ground. I never did. My mother’s Bridal Veil bush caught me.
It was a mixed blessing. If you’ve never seen a Bridal Veil bush, you have missed one of nature’s lacy beauties. It has long fronds of delicate white blossoms — nestled among long thin needle sharp thorns.

I hung in the bush, head down, feet flailing at the sky, and yelling for my Gram. Gram didn’t hear me hollering. She was in the kitchen, just down the hall from my room and on the opposite side of the house. Besides, even if she did hear some kid screaming, it couldn’t have been her kid, who was safely ensconced in her own ruffly pink bedroom.

Mrs. Jay, out on her porch beating rugs, saw me fall. She called Gram. Gram hustled outside and snatched me out of that bush, giving little care to how much me she left behind. Then, much to my shock, rather than rejoicing that I was alive, she spanked me! Next she marched me into the house, scrubbed my cuts with little mercy, painted me mecurochrome orange, and ordered me to sit on the step stool beside the frige until I “grew some smarts.”

It was a long summer.