A little over a week ago, my oldest son and I spent a morning making paper airplanes together.
It started out as a school assignment for summer break, teachers’ idea of reacquainting kids with the scientific method in between Popsicles and pool time. The photocopied assignment encouraged him to make a paper airplane, measure how far it could travel, make adjustments, and re-test for distance.
He was inspired to take on the assignment on a Tuesday morning. (I use the term “inspired” loosely; I told him he could decide between the paper airplane assignment and a double-digit subtraction with regrouping worksheet.) He asked me if I could help, and it took everything I had to ignore the congealed pancake batter on the kitchen counter, his little brother’s sopping-wet diaper, and the fact that we were all still in our pajamas at 10:30 a.m. We gathered some computer paper, and my son crafted a basic design—sharp nose, flat, triangulated wings. It nosedived just short of 10 feet.
We did what any person living in this century would do: Googled, “best paper airplane.” The first link was to an Instructables site that promised to recreate the paper airplane that won the world distance record. I was dubious: It felt like an Internet version of your grandma’s sauce-speckled old spaghetti recipe: hard to read, hard to follow, and demanding improvisation at every turn. But my son was adamant that this looked like the real deal. We sweated though every step of the tutorial, squinting, re-folding, and occasionally debating which corners and creases the author was referring to.
When we finally finished, the plane looked a lot like the one on the site. My son pinched the plane’s underside, pointed its snub nose slightly upward, and let fly. It sailed and sailed—37 feet from approximately one side of our house to another (luckily, we have an open floor plan). We looked at each other in astonishment—and started cracking up. I don’t know why it was so funny—sheer amazement that the puzzling instructions delivered, perhaps—but I do know it’s been awhile since my oldest son and I have belly laughed together. It was a truly satisfying moment, aerodynamically and interpersonally.
The exercise reminded me of a short essay written by my favorite college professor, the writer John McPhee. His story “The Silk Parachute” was originally published in the New Yorker, and anthologized in a slim collection of the same name. (My mother-in-law gave me the volume, which you can purchase here; it is a truly wonderful gift for yourself or anyone.) In the piece, McPhee claims, tongue-in-cheek, that he can’t quite recall the many times his overburdened, demonstrative mother harangued him over one youthful misadventure or another. What he will not forget, however, is the time she took him to a local airstrip to watch the planes coming and going, sat patiently for hours, and then bought him a toy parachute in the gift shop afterward. I’ve read and re-read this story several times, because it helps remind me how important small, but totally focused windows of relaxed one-on-one time are to children amidst the chaos of everyday life. They are the stuff memories are made of, and they are worth our time, no matter how many breakfast dishes go unwashed in the process.
I’m sorry if all this time you’ve just been waiting for the instructions on how to make the best paper airplane. Check them out here. It makes for a fun weekend morning.
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