Thunder Down Under: Survival – separate yet together

By Vic Midyett

“In all my put together born days” is an old Southern (U.S.) saying that I suspect is not used much, if any, anymore. It means, “in my whole life.”

Missionary Kid: Champion Kite

“Kite” (detail)

By Vic Midyett

[Originally published on September 7, 2016. The original stock image of a kite has been replaced with the painting by Shirley Deane/Midyett, and Vic has made a few minor changes.]

I was about 10 years old, maybe 12. Every summer the kids where we were living in India bought or made kites and flew them in the summer breezes. Any given day or time you could see hundreds of kites in the air.
    The Indians did something that I haven’t heard of anywhere else. Most kite makers there also sold a string with very fine crushed glass glued onto the string. The reason for this was a game kids played where, with skill, they would wrap their kite’s string around another kid’s kite’s string, and jerk down suddenly in hopes of cutting the other kid’s string and setting his kite loose. This brought bragging rights.