Shattered Childhood Dreams

I, like everyone else, soon learned that if something sounds too good to be true, it is. My earliest recollection of this sad fact of life involved my trying to acquire the necessary equipment to facilitate life as a spy. I had previously wheedled a magnifying glass from my grandmother, but I needed more. And then one day, I saw a magic decoder ring advertised on the back of a Superman comic book. The moment I saw it, I just had to have it. Mom warned me, kindly, that it wouldn’t work as it was described, but I knew better. Surely Superman wouldn’t allow false advertising in his comic. No. It was undoubtedly the real thing. I just couldn’t believe my luck. I had stumbled upon something fantastic, and not just any old ring but a ring that decoded magically. I saved my allowance and even did extra chores to earn more. Once I’d accumulated the necessary funds, Mom took me to the post office to buy a money order. I carefully clipped the order blank, put it and the money order into the envelope, licked the flap, and sealed it. I painstakingly addressed the envelope and dropped it into the mail slot.


After one or two days, I began to haunt Mr. Bonner, our mailman, every afternoon. “Is it here yet?” He’d smile and shake his head. “Be patient,” he’d say. “Give it time.” It took over two weeks, and I had nearly despaired, but it came. Racing inside, I eagerly ripped open the packaging and took out a very cheap-looking plastic ring painted silver. “I’m not worried,” I reassured myself. I concluded that it was designed to look cheap so that evil spies would not recognize its true purpose. Sadly, it took less than a day for my belief in the ring’s powers to be thoroughly dashed. There was nothing magic about it. It didn’t decode anything, and it broke while I was riding my bike.


I wish I could say that that was the last time I had to learn a lesson about distinguishing fantasy from reality, but no, it was not. I’d seen cartoon characters safely “parachute” from high places using an umbrella several times. Bugs or Daffy might be fleeing some adversary, and then, suddenly, reach what seemed to be an impasse. When all seemed hopeless, out of thin air, an umbrella would appear. The character would then pop open the umbrella and gently float through the sky, descending gracefully to the ground. I dreamed about this, imagining the freedom of floating through the air, the touch of a gentle breeze brushing my face. (I have always been susceptible to magical thinking.)


And so, not having learned the lesson of “too good to be true” from the decoder ring, I decided I could master flying. I snatched Mom’s green umbrella from the stand, climbed the apple tree next to the garage, and hoisted myself onto the garage roof top. (I should note here that this was no ordinary climb since I had to do it while securing an umbrella under my arm.) I stood there, surveying the yard and garden, looking for the largest clearing in which to land. I knew I would need lots of room to make a safe descent since I would obviously waft a bit in the air currents, just as the cartoon characters did. Having made my choice, I held the umbrella aloft, popped it open with a flourish, and without hesitation, leaped off the roof.


I did not waft. I did not float. What I did do is fall, swiftly and awkwardly, and hit the ground with a thud that nearly jarred my teeth loose. Gravity, not air currents, had prevailed. It was anything but a soft landing. Why I didn’t break something must have been a testament to all the milk Mom made us drink. Although the landing knocked the breath out of me, I must have yelled pretty loudly on the way down because as I began to struggle to catch my breath, Mom came flying out the screened porch door.


In the fuzziness that was my stunned thought process, I heard Mom shout, “What the devil just happened?” Needing pity, I burst into tears, but she was looking at the inside-out remains of her green umbrella lying to the left of me. There was a long pause, and then she said, “I don’t see any blood. Can you stand up?” Hands on her hips, she looked at me, incredulity and a bit of wonder on her face. “Why is my umbrella broken? What were you doing, Karen?”


I tried once again for a pity party, marshalling up fresh tears. It was a no go. Mom came down to my level, looked me dead in the eyes, and demanded, “Karen Pugh! Tell me, right this minute, what did you do?”


I gave the most logical explanation I could master under the circumstances, but I evidently wasn’t all that convincing. Mom stood, slowly shook her head, and sighed deeply. “It’s a wonder you didn’t break your neck.” (Neck-breaking was a possibility for many things I did: riding a bike with no hands, running on the stairs, swinging on a rope swing…. Any deed of daring-do precipitated the same question from Mom: “Are you trying to break your neck?”) After learning of my most recent neck-breaking-possible deed, she just shook her head, patted me on mine, and said, “What am I going to do with you?” I fervently hoped the answer was “nothing.” She walked back toward me, said nothing more, picked up the umbrella remnants, and carried them out to the trash barrel.



This was a lesson I did learn the first time and immediately. When a six-year-old jumps off a garage roof, assuming she will float through the air, she won’t. Once I’d pulled a Road Runner sans an anvil on my head, the dream of my flying was forever shattered. From that day forward, I’ve done all my flying in a plane piloted by someone else. It’s the only way to go, believe me.