In 1959 when my mother divorced, she did not want to return to Southern Alabama. For whatever her reasons, she decided Tampa was the place to be.
My uncle lived on Idelwild Street and my mom bought a house two streets south and two blocks west. While closing on the house, my mother, my sister, and my two brothers and I stayed with my Uncle Buddy over at his place on Idelwild.
The subdivision was a booming community and realtors were constantly showing potential buyers around. One day, my mother had my sister, the older of my two younger brothers, my cousins, and me in my uncle’s front yard where we were flying a kite. We had built the kite from scratch and it was a rather windy day. The kite was unstable and needed more weight on the tail. My mother looked at us and said, “Wait here and don’t leave the yard.” With that, she picked up the kite and went inside looking for more material to tie onto the tail.
Well, while she was in my uncle’s house, we kids were hanging around the front yard. I was the oldest at six. Before too long, a realtor came by to show the property across the street from my uncle’s to a young couple. They were going to buy their first home and seriously thinking of moving into the neighborhood. In an effort to get to know what kind of a neighborhood they might be buying into, the young woman turned to me and asked, “Do you live here?”
“Oh no,” I replied.
“Well, where do you live?” she then asked.
I pointed in the direction of where I thought our new house would be and said, “Over there.”
Her next question was, “Where is your mother?”
“In there,” I said, turning and pointing to my uncle’s house.
“What is she doing in there?” the woman asked.
“Getting a piece of tail,” I very innocently answered. Because my mother had taken the kite into Uncle Buddy’s house, the poor lady had no way of knowing we were flying kites. She also had no idea the tail of which I spoke was – well – a kite tail!
Years later, my uncle finally decided I was old enough to hear the story of the kite tail. He said the realtor, a friend of his, lost the deal and the young couple never bought anywhere near the new neighborhood.
That was a shame because as it turned out, our neighborhood was a great place to grow up.
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© 2010 J. Clark
Hilarious! I would love to hear what the woman said to her husband when they were leaving the neighborhood that day! 🙂
Tyler, I have often had that very thought!