As a child, I wanted to be able
to fly SO badly! I spent an enormous amount of time trying to figure out ways
in which I could pull of this task. I first experimented with plastic grocery
bags, and jumping off my swing set. With that being a failure, I thought maybe
I should jump off something higher, like the roof. Unfortunately, my parents
wouldn’t let me get up on the roof to try. So that didn’t work out.
Back at the drawing board, I
thought about all the people who could fly, and how they went about it. There
were only three people that I knew of who could fly: Superman, Peter Pan and angels.
I realized that unlike Superman, I was not a super hero, so that wasn’t going
to work. I also realized that angels fly because they have wings. I didn’t have
wings, so that option was off the table as well. The last resort was Peter Pan.
The good thing about him was that he was just a normal boy, but was able to fly
with the help of pixie dust. This was progress! Of course, I would first have
to get my hands on some pixie dust, but soon as I did, I would be golden!
So how does one go about getting
pixie dust in the late 1980’s? Well, there was only one person I knew of that
could help me get “hard to get things.” Santa Claus! I knew that if I asked
Santa, he would definitely bring me some, and I would then be able to fly.
Hooray! Unfortunately, my attention was momentarily distracted by the Christmas
Lego catalog, and I ended up asking for Legos instead of pixie dust. Blast!
(Though, the Leogs were glorious.)
For a child, a year is a looooong
time. Christmas seems to never come, so I figured that I had blown my shot at
getting pixie dust, and went back to the drawing board. I still had no hopes of
becoming a super hero, so the only other option was to get wings. Unfortunately, only
angels have wings... so I wouldn’t be able to have wings unless, of course, I
became an angel myself. How does one become an angel? Well, in my mind, you
just die and go to Heaven. At the time I figured angels were just people
who were now in heaven. I figured that if I just killed myself, I would go up to Heaven, get my
wings, and then I could come right back down to earth. No big deal, right? I imagined my mom in the
kitchen, and me floating down through the ceiling with my wings. I imagined
that she would be so pleased with me! Her little Zachary has wings and can fly,
what a clever boy he is! (I imagined I would look just like this kid, but with regular clothes.)
I didn’t know how I would go
about killing myself, but I had some thought about maybe wrapping a coat hanger
around my head. I am not sure what I thought that would accomplish, but I was
just a little kid, so give me a break. I suppose it was lucky that before I
tried to do this, I went and told my mom my plan. I don’t remember what her
reaction was, but I do know that she dissuaded me from killing myself by lying
to me. She told me that I already was growing wings. “See those bones that sort
of stick out of your back [shoulder blades]? Those are your wings… and they are
growing.” My mind raced, “WHY HAD NO ONE TOLD ME THIS!!!??” Very excited about
this news, I would check my shoulder blades every day, hoping to see the wings
starting to pop out. Eventually, I realized
that I wasn’t actually growing wings (It might have been that my parents finally told me. I don't remember). Either way, I was quite disappointed.
I only had one option left. It was a long shot, but I thought I might able to will
myself to fly. I remember sitting on the side of my bed thinking, “If I just
think about it hard enough, I bet I can fly.” Nope. That didn’t work either.
And with that, all my ideas were
exhausted, and I was forced to accept that even though I wanted it so badly,
little boys just aren’t meant to fly.
