More words from Jimmy

As I have used words, photos and images to try to keep my grief at bay, Jimmy has created his essays. Here is another.

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Andy's Cleverness

One of the things that I always admired about Andy was his cleverness with his hands, his mind, and with his speech. He was always doing something cunning with his hands, be it building something or fixing something that one of us had broken. He was always thinking of different ways to do things that would make life easier for one of us, or for himself. He was always saying something that had some profound meaning or interest to one of us. My thoughts are these.

One of my earliest memories of Andy and his clever ways was when he had first moved in with us. At the time, my mom and my dad had just split up, and Andy stayed with me at night when my mom worked her shifts at the hospital. My mom did a number of kind things to help me through this troubled time in my life. Often, I would come home to a small gift, sometimes a book, a candy bar, and most memorable of all, several different kites.

The first day I remember getting one, it had been raining all day, the kind of day that leaves you feeling damp even if you hadn’t really gotten wet; the kind of day that makes you feel sort of low in any regard. I got home just as the sun started to come out, and I found a kite, some kite string, a Butter Finger candy bar, and a note. The note was from my mom and she instructed me to have fun and told me that she loved me. I remember she signed it with a little sun, a symbol she has always put on notes or letters to me and, in fact, still signs whenever she writes me. I ate the candy bar hurriedly as I tied the kite to the string and took it outside to try it out. The wind was just right, it was the perfect temperature, and I was fired up from eating the candy. It took me only a few minutes to get the beautiful Snoopy and the Red Baron kite up into the air. Snoopy would get that Red Baron this time, sitting atop his trusty Sopwith Camel. He had nothing to worry about with me as his co-pilot. It was so fun, I nearly cried.

Very soon, however, disaster struck. Whoever designs kite string rolls neglected to add a very important feature to them.

A knot.

Up and up the kite soared and the string was unraveling just as fast as I could let
it. Then, before I could catch it, the string unraveled right off the roll and the kite soared yet even higher, leaving me with a small tube of cardboard which I will tell you is NOT a good substitute for a kite. The kite was VERY high by this time, and I snatched at the end of the string as it hovered just above my hands. I jumped frantically after it.

I missed.

I chased that miserable kite string halfway down the block before it simply got too high and went too far for me to chase it.

I cried as I watched the Snoopy kite soar away, so high that I could barely make out his smiling features. I stood there and sobbed until I couldn't see it any longer. Needless to say, my entire evening was ruined.

Andy heard me crying and saw what had happened. I believe if he could have, Andy would have taken me to the nearest store and we would have gotten another kite. Andy wasn’t driving at the time though, so it wasn’t an option. He must have told my mother about what had happened though, because the very next day, there was a brand new Snoopy and the Red Baron kite and string waiting for me.

Determined not to lose this one, I found a stout piece of metal piping about 12 inches long, unraveled the string off the cheap cardboard roll, and proceeded to try and put it through the metal pipe to tie it and recoil it. For the life of me, I could NOT get that string through that pipe. It kept getting caught on itself before it would get to the other side. Sadly, I took it to Andy to see if he could get it through. He contemplated it a second, and reached into the pouch he had hanging off the back of his wheelchair. From it, he produced a small safety pin, tied the string around it, and dropped it through the pipe just as neat as, well, just as neat as a pin.

How I loved him for that. Not only had he been instrumental in me getting another kite after I had tragically lost my first one, he helped me after I had fought with that lousy kite string for an hour, wasting valuable kite flying time. He solved my problem with a few calculated, deliberate movements. It was as close to genius that I had at that time ever seen.

Although, it may not seem like much, I still don't think I would have thought of such an easy, clever way of getting the string through the pipe. I undoubtedly would try to find something to poke it through (as I had then).

I miss Andy's clever remarks and his clever actions. As Mom told John Henry when Andy died, "God undoubtedly needed some stuff fixed." He called upon the right man for the job. I miss his ability to see to the heart of whatever trouble I was working on, either on a project or in life itself. Andy had a mental clarity that made him deliberate and precise in what he did and I envy him for that. And I miss it.

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