The Paper Airplane—
The half-time festivities included flying a paper airplane into the bull’ s- eye of a target set up on the court. She and Melanie, her childhood friend, decided to joint venture on this task. Kalisa would design the craft and Melanie would fly it.
My husband, Don, has always made paper airplanes. He learned the art from a childhood friend who made model airplanes as his hobby.
When our girls were in grade school, their father flew one of his paper airplanes around our family room, aiming it straight for our golden retriever, who couldn’ t wait to play. The kids then jumped up, intercepted the little craft, and frustrated the dog, causing loud, resonant barks. Later, throughout our daughters’ high school years, the airplane had long been put to rest.
One night, the telephone rang with our excited, now-college daughter, Kalisa, on the other end.
“ Melanie and I won a trip to the NCAA championship volleyball matches in Long Beach, California,” she screamed. Don, holding the phone at arm’ s length, didn’ t need to hand it to me, as I could hear her clear across the room.
“ We won the half-time contest at the University of Washington versus Arizona volleyball match last night,” she said breathlessly.
Carefully folding the paper symmetrically, flattening all of the creases and forming a blunt nose for greater distance, the little, but sturdy plane was ready for take-off. Melanie did the honors. The mighty airplane soared through the air and landed closer to the bull’ s-eye than any other contestant’ s plane.
After the winner was announced, the exuberant twosome telephoned everyone in the city of Seattle, heralding their good fortune. The prize included entrance into the volleyball tournament, three free nights at a Hilton Hotel and free round-trip flights from Seattle to California … a college kid’ s dream!
Curious, later that evening, Don telephoned Kalisa and asked,“ Did you use my airplane design?”
“ Of course!” said Kalisa, who was happy to have paid attention, years ago, to the engineering of the family room flying aircraft.
A proud papa congratulated the twosome on their successful win.
54 NORTHWEST AEROSPACE NEWS