It is not rare, when relating some exploit of my youth, to conclude with the statement, “It’s a miracle I’m still alive today!” This is an admission that many of those exploits were, to say the least, ill-advised. Life-threatening is neared the mark.
I have managed the feat of self-powered flight twice in my life. The first time was in the third grade, in the tiny Alabama town of Weaver, which is just outside of Anniston, over in the “mountainous” part of the state. Mt. Cheaha, the highest elevation in Alabama, is nearby. And no, I did not leap off Mt. Cheaha. I mention the place merely to point out that there are some distinct hills in the area.
In fact, the little subdivision in which we lived was built on a steep slope. It was a new subdivision, back in a time when the very word “subdivision” was a fairly new coinage. We lived in several “new subdivisions” while I was growing up. I am fond of telling people that I lived in 21 different houses by the time I graduated from high school. We moved a lot, and this often meant buying a house that either was brand new, or had only one or two previous owners. Not a lot of trees, the landscaping still sort of raw and in need of attention.
Our little home was at the top of the hill. The developers had carved each lot into the hillside, so that on the downslope side of our yard, there was a ten foot drop down to the next yard. The yards formed a set of “giant steps”, and it was eight or ten feet down to each successive step. This arrangement was not conducive to “playing”. If you threw the football to your brother, he could easily disappear over the parapet in his eagerness to catch it. Not saying I ever did such a thing, only that the dire possibility always existed.
But then one day… One day, we bought a new refrigerator. And after it was delivered and installed, suddenly we had one whole cardboard refrigerator box with which to do just about anything. A refrigerator box is like an electric stimulant to a kid’s imagination, at least it was in those days. The possibilities were infinite and magical.
The box was about six feet long, and maybe a foot and a half deep and a couple feet wide. For some reason, I collapsed the box so that it looked basically like a giant rectangle, with a little hump running down the middle of the long side. And I was suddenly struck with a brilliant inspiration!
I didn’t remember what it was called, but I had read enough science to know that the Bernoulli Principle was what gave an airplane the ability to fly. The wings just needed a little hump in the middle so that the air went faster over the top of the wing than it did on the bottom.
A little hump exactly like the one I was looking at in my refrigerator box.
With my brother’s help, and lots of tape, we secured some supports inside the box so that the hump would stay in place. Next, I added a couple of rope handles on the underside of the “wing”, just wide enough to reach with my arms extended. Then we dragged the device to the front yard, to the edge of the yard furthest away from that ten foot precipice.
The wonderful thing about the mind of a third grader is that the idea of mortality is completely absent from any consideration. It is instead capable of seeing pure imagination. It is capable of seeing one’s self in full flight.
I started running toward the edge of the yard, going as fast as I could possibly run. I felt the refrigerator box trying to lift me into the air. I hit the edge of the yard, and leaped out.
And I flew. I flew, almost to the middle of our neighbor’s yard. It was one of the greatest moments of my young life.
Before my brother could take his turn at glory, my mother came running out into the yard, yelling pretty loudly. And that was the end of Puckett Aviation. I guess someone had spied me floating by outside their window. I’m a little sorry nobody else got to experience that thrill, though it’s just as well. I imagine there was more than a little luck at work preventing broken bones or worse.
But I had flown. And I had used my mind to work out the whole thing, from principles of lift and what I understood about airplanes. I was kinda proud of that.
The other time I flew… but that’s another story, for another time. Suffice it to say that, rather than resulting in a bit of pride at the power of my mind, the next time I flew, I was much closer to actually being out of my mind.
But one thing’s for sure: It’s a miracle I’m still alive today!
© 2017 Chuck Puckett