Thursday, March 24, 2011

Memory for Today - PopPop and Amazing Helicopter Rescue

Yesterday was William's birthday. He is now 11 years old. Wow! He was excited because my mom has a tradition of taking the birthday kid out to lunch and then to Toys R Us to pick out a present. William came home with a mini air chopper (a remote controlled helicopter) and a game of some sort (I still have not figured it out). He was playing with all his toys waiting for pizza to arrive. He went outside because his brothers and sister kept getting into everything. About 10 minutes later he came inside with a real dejected look on his face. He was almost in tears. He told my mom and me that he had lost his helicopter. He had been in the backyard playing with it and it had gotten caught up in a tree. We told him that after dinner we would go out and see if we could get it down. What he did not tell us is that it was about 20 feet up in a tree caught in some pine needles. After dinner my dad and I go outside and look for abut 10 minutes just trying to find it. It is a mini one so it is not even 2 inches long. When we finally found it we tried for about 20 minutes to throw things in that tree to dislodge it. It was quite comically because we had things flying all over the place. Not once did we even get close to the helicopter. The kids were all laughing. They made a game of dodging all the items we tried to throw up. My dad finally got his ladder out and was able to finally dislodge it from the tree. We all did a little victory dance. William was very grateful. I was amazed that my father who has medical problems and really should not be out on a ladder was willing to take the time and do something for William that was so important to him. My dad raised three girls and has really enjoyed having boys to play with. He sure loves his grandchildren and all the kids sure do love their PopPop.