Knocking At The Gate

I was maybe eight and staying for a few days with my grandparents, who then lived near Terry Park in Fort Myers. I had been given a dollar for “spending money” by my parents, and of course how to spend it was heavy on my mind as Granny drove up to a little market on Palm Beach Boulevard. Granny collected the bread or milk or whatever it was she really came here for, and I had not yet decided what to buy. There was an Icee machine at the register with CHERRY! This would certainly have been the prize, but right at the register there was also a small display of little foam airplanes. The way these worked was that they came unassembled, so you had to carefully separate the perforated wings and stabilizers and then slide the pieces together into precut slots. That was a fine thing by itself when it was just images of airplanes printed on the pieces, but THIS display had a selection of superheroes. I could get a glider that wasn’t just a jet fighter, but I could get a HUMAN TORCH glider! Of