MAGIC

By Kim Michael

When a favorite Aunt on my wife’s side of the family put this picture on Facebook, I had to write something about it. Maybe not about the kids, the only one I really know in the picture is the little girl sitting in the driver’s seat, my wife’s Aunt, who is now my age. I also never saw the car they built, but the picture of all of them gathered around their newly made, kid-built car, and the look on their faces–pure “Magic”.

The world is a different place when you’re a kid. When you look at an old box and some wheels and the seat off some broken chair, you don’t see a pile of junk, you see… a car. When you see a stack of hay bales and an old tarp, you don’t see hay and canvas, you see a fort, or a castle, or a ship about to sail off to fight pirates on the high seas, or a hundred other things.

When you’re a kid, everything is alive with possibility, there are no boundaries, everything is just waiting for you to touch it, to give it life. You live in a world where witches and fairies and fairy-god mothers, and even homemade cars, are all real and you believe that, because you know, with out a doubt, that “magic” is real.

Seeing that picture took me back to when I too believed in magic, before the world waxed over hard with reality and that sense of wonder that we all begin life with had weened itself from my imagination.

And so it was, one summer day, that my best friend Denny and I, decided to build an airplane. Not a model airplane mind you, but a real airplane. One that would carry the both of us up, up and away, and I remember thinking what a grand idea it was.

We found a pile of old boards behind the garage that my dad had been saving. My dad was an avid board collector. He had piles of them all over the place. He had long ones and short ones, two by fours and flat boards, you name it and he had. I never knew what they were for, and frankly, I don’t think he did either. But there they were, just calling us. They knew us by name and I could tell, just by looking at them, they wanted to be something. And when a board wants to be something other than a board, you have to oblige it. It’s a rule of nature.

And so we pulled everything to the front yard and began to build. There’s not a lot of planning when you’re a kid, you just do it. There are no blueprints, the blueprint is an idea in your head. Drawing and measuring are a waste of time. They say that when Walt Disney decided to build Disney World, he spent hours just walking the empty land in Florida, and to anyone who saw him, he just looked like he was walking around, but he wasn’t. He was walking down main street. He could see every building, every store front, even the the castle. It was all in his mind and the blueprint was only an idea, a dream that he had.

So with that in mind, we began. The fuselage was a couple of boards we nailed together to make it just long enough. If I remember the wings were a good fifteen feet across, but we didn’t have anything to cover them with.

Then the idea came to Denny, an epiphany if ever there was one. If you could use paper to make a model airplane, why couldn’t you use it on a real airplane? We gathered up old newspapers and Christmas wrapping paper and paper bags, and piece by piece we stretched them out and nailed them to the wings. And then made a place just behind the wings where we both could sit and with a few more boards, the tail was done. And then we mounted the whole thing on my red Radio Flyer wagon using old bailing wire and twine to secure it. And thus, as thus goes, in a matter of a few hours, it was done. Wilbur and Orville Wright would have been proud.

We had the route all planned out. We would run it down the hill next to my house to get up enough speed and when it lifted off, we would both jump on and fly down the valley and then turn back and fly over my house, and then Denny’s, and land in the field next to his house.

It was going to be a long flight so we decided to get a drink of water before we took off. Building an airplane is hard work and it was warm that day. Perfect for flying if I remember correctly.

When we left the kitchen I heard mom say to dad, “You don’t think that thing will really fly, do you?” Just hearing her ask him made me think that it might just actually fly, though I thought I heard the sound of my dad laughing as the door closed behind us.

And so the long journey began. We dragged that behemoth to the top of the hill, balanced on my Radio Flyer wagon, groaning and complaining under the weight and then, when we got to the top, we positioned the nose facing downhill and everything was set.

I scooped up a handful of dust and let it fall so I could see which way the wind was blowing. I’d seen someone do it in a movie once so I knew it was something you had to do. Denny assured me, all pilots do it–even airline pilots. Even though their runways are cement they keep a handful of dirt in their pockets and just before they get into the cockpit, when no one’s looking, they empty their pocket to see which way the wind is blowing. So there it was–proof.

The dust told the story. There was just a slight breeze and it was blowing sideways and then in circles. Perfect, as far as either of us knew. And so it was time. We mounted our magic aircraft and on the count of three, we kicked away the bricks from under the wheels, and we began our descent down the hill.

As we built up speed the plane began to shimmy and shake and I knew we were just about about to take off, when suddenly, about half way down, one of the wings dipped, caught the ground and the plane spun wildly. The wheels on the wagon snapped, and in another second we were sprawled out on the ground. The plane slid another ten feet, and then the wings fell off and the fuselage split in two.

I looked at Denny, “Did we leave the ground?”

Denny looked at me dazed, “I think so.”

And so in days to come, the story of our flight and the airplane we built became bigger and more fantastic with each telling. Neighborhood kids listened wide eyed, as we recanted the story over and over again of how we flew down the valley and over our houses and landed perfectly in the field next to Denny’s house.

I never really knew what became of that airplane. Maybe my dad pulled it all back off that hill where we left it, or maybe, just maybe, the pieces magically came back together, and when the wind was just right, it lifted off the ground and flew away. I can’t be sure.

There are times though, I think I can still see it, flying up in the sky, circling over our town, slipping and swirling in the clouds, dancing on the wind with newspaper and Christmas paper wings; and for a moment, just a moment. I remember what it was like, when I too, believed in… magic.