Launched

I don't know why this popped into my head the other day but thinking about it made me laugh. It's a little story about my Dad that happened 47 years ago when he still had a sense of humour and he needed it, as you will see.
It was a hot summer afternoon and my parents had friends over. My Dad was sitting in his favourite rocking chair sharing his recent fun on a brand new Air Canada jet. It may have been TCA (Trans Canada Airways) still, for all I knew. Jets had just come into passenger service. My Dad had hoped to fly during the war but couldn't as he was colour blind. Instead he learned how to shoot them down but had never lost his keen interest in flight. Little did he know he would be making an unexpected one of his own. He was describing the jet take off as compared to a prop plane that sort of drags itself up. The jets took off much more dramatically and Dad was in full throttle, arms extended, taking off once more to share the thrill of it all with us, when he went a tad too far into that wild blue yonder and over he went backwards in the rocker with a mighty crash. All that could be seen were his little legs waving in the air with his little slippers flapping on the ends of them.
Pandemonium broke out as several men rushed to haul him upright. It took a Yorkshire friend to come up with the perfect bon mot.
"You're right Jim, it is quite the take off!" Everybody laughed, including my Dad, though my Mum was still fussing about broken bones. He was fine and continued to sit in his rocker but his stories weren't quite so dramatic and he didn't rock.