Spreading Their Wings

The sun is setting on a hot day in Dayton, Ohio. Warm colors fill the horizon, a cool breeze starting to rustle across the verdant green colored grass. Inside a weathered old barn two brothers are found leaning over a wooden drafting table, discussing future plans.

“I don’t know Wilbur. Just doesn’t seem to make sense to me.”

“I’m tellin’ you Orville…it’ll work. Trust me.”

The younger of the two brothers sighs as he reaches up to retrieve the old toy from a shelf above them. The contraption, a small helicopter made of bamboo and cork, has a thinly worn rubber band that allows it to be propelled in any direction the user wishes. Their father had gifted the young men this toy when they were just children, and the awe of how the helicopter flew across the room that first day never ceases to amaze and thrill them.

Wilbur snatches the toy from Orville and begins to screw in the wooden fan he created just hours ago onto the top of the helicopter. “It’s gonna work.” He mutters to himself this time, struggling to straighten the nail into the thin bamboo wood.

“Oh just let me do it.” Orville screeches, struggling against the strength of his older brother’s arms to grab the childhood toy. The younger man is successful in attaching the fan, a toothy grin stretching across his face at this small triumph over his older, smarter brother.

The older man rolls his eyes and hands two pieces of wood slender in form to his younger brother. “Okay now attach the sides.”

After the pieces are secured, Wilbur climbs up a rusty ladder to the loft of the barn and gets down on his knees. Orville opens the massive barn doors, the ancient hinges creaking underneath the weight of the wood. Out in the distance a handmade target stands, next to it a meter mark sticks into the soft soil below. The older brother squints as he places his thumb and index finger around the blue rubber band. In an instant, he releases the helicopter…his pulse thumping in his ears and wrists. The toy sails out of the barn, aided by the soft breeze of wind as it careens toward the target. It hits the red dot in the middle of the plank of wood and falls to the grass, in a quiet thump.

The brothers look at one another and cheer, their fists pumping the air. Wilbur climbs down the ladder hastily and squeezes his brother with delight. “200! 200 meters Orville! I told you it would work!”

The younger man wipes a tear from his eye, pride swelling in his heart at the sight of his brother being so happy.

Imagine if he had gone off to Yale, he thinks, smiling while his brother rambles on and on.

Over the next few years, the brothers perfect their flight plans in the same dilapidated barn, working out the pieces of a bigger model in their heads and transplanting them onto countless blue prints. The day comes when they decide on their location to finally put their plans to use. They stare at the pictures in the book before them, 100 foot sand dunes eclipsing the pages.

“You sure it gets windy enough?” Orville asks his brother.

“I’m sure. It’s the perfect place, don’t you fret.”

“I trust you.”

They close the book and look around at the place where their ideas were born. “This old barn’s been good to us wouldn’t you say Wil?”

“Sure has Orville. Sure has.”

The brothers walk out of the barn, arm in arm and turn to take one last look at the ruts in the wood and rotting pieces of timber that crown the roof.

“Let’s build one just like it when we get to Kitty Hawk.” Wilbur says, grabbing his brother by the top of his head and rustling his hair.

And that’s just what they did.