Poppins

  Anyone who has seen the film "Mary Poppins" knows that she could fly using her umbrella.  It was magic, but I wondered if it would work in real life.  After all, I was a curious kid.

 We lived on an incline.  The hill went down for a block.  Our house was the second house on the hill.  I had fantasized about using an umbrella as a parachute and jumping off of the house, but I heard stories about people hurting themselves, so I didn't do that, despite the dares from the other neighborhood kids.  I didn't weigh a lot, so I could have succeeded in that dare, but I was kind of afraid.  No other kid in our neighborhood did it either.  However, I did wonder about flying with an umbrella.

 It had rained a lot one day, and it was very windy.  I figured to give it a try.  I got the biggest umbrella I could find, which was really the only umbrella I had.  I went outside to the street and went running down the hill hoping for an updraft.  Nothing happened on the first few tries, but then a big gust of wind took me up.  I was flying about six inches off of the ground, as I went down the hill.  It was pretty cool, until I got scared.  What if I went far enough up and then fell to the ground hurting myself?  So, I let go of the umbrella and fell the six inches to the pavement.  I wasn't hurt, but I did have to go find the umbrella which had blown down the street.  

 I never told my parents.  I knew that I would get a spanking.  I got a lot of spankings for various things.  I was 11 years old and didn't want another one.  I never understood the phrase:  "This is going to hurt me more than it is going to hurt you".  At least, not that time.