Flying in the paper cup
Oct. 12th, 2016 11:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
susandennisWhen I was 6, we moved from Kansas City, MO to Winston-Salem, NC. I had to learn to add m'am and sir to every response to an adult. I spent the second half of the first grade trying to wade through my teacher's thick southern accent - not very successfully, actually.
Next door lived Stevie (my age) and his sister (a couple of years older). They got bicycles that year for Christmas. The bicycles came in a giant wooden box just like the box that my litter cabinet came in yesterday (hence this remembrance floated to the surface).
But, instead of tossing it like I did, they set it up on the back yard. Stevie's dad was a pilot for Piedmont Airlines which was a major airlines in the South back in the day. They got sold to an airline who got sold to an airline who got merged with another airline that got sold to an airline BUT in 1955 they were a BFD and Stevie was all about airplanes.
He took his crayons to the inside of the wooden box and created his own airplane complete with cock pit dashboard, and passenger seats with windows. He called it his Paper Cup. Getting to take a trip in Stevie's Paper Cup was huge. It was a special invitation and I loved it. I had a little pink suitcase that I would pack and take with me. He provided running commentary and the flight. I do remember we always seemed to land and take off from a runway called Niner-Niner.
I traveled a fair amount in the 1st and 2nd grade. It was wonderful to sit in that little wooden box and go anywhere Stevie wanted.
Years later, I was sitting in a physics class trying to figure out the ramifications of actually dropping the class since I was clearly going to fail it when the professor suddenly caught my attention. He was talking about the aerodynamics of a small airplane and called it a Piper Cub. Piper Cub???? you mean not Paper Cup???? OMG really??? Fortunately I was sitting on the back row so not too many people heard me laughing out loud.
Next door lived Stevie (my age) and his sister (a couple of years older). They got bicycles that year for Christmas. The bicycles came in a giant wooden box just like the box that my litter cabinet came in yesterday (hence this remembrance floated to the surface).
But, instead of tossing it like I did, they set it up on the back yard. Stevie's dad was a pilot for Piedmont Airlines which was a major airlines in the South back in the day. They got sold to an airline who got sold to an airline who got merged with another airline that got sold to an airline BUT in 1955 they were a BFD and Stevie was all about airplanes.
He took his crayons to the inside of the wooden box and created his own airplane complete with cock pit dashboard, and passenger seats with windows. He called it his Paper Cup. Getting to take a trip in Stevie's Paper Cup was huge. It was a special invitation and I loved it. I had a little pink suitcase that I would pack and take with me. He provided running commentary and the flight. I do remember we always seemed to land and take off from a runway called Niner-Niner.
I traveled a fair amount in the 1st and 2nd grade. It was wonderful to sit in that little wooden box and go anywhere Stevie wanted.
Years later, I was sitting in a physics class trying to figure out the ramifications of actually dropping the class since I was clearly going to fail it when the professor suddenly caught my attention. He was talking about the aerodynamics of a small airplane and called it a Piper Cub. Piper Cub???? you mean not Paper Cup???? OMG really??? Fortunately I was sitting on the back row so not too many people heard me laughing out loud.
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Date: 2016-10-12 07:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2016-10-12 07:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2016-10-12 07:46 pm (UTC)When my brother was young he had a large thick card tube tub, about 5 feet tall. He cut a slot in it and inside drew controls and instruments. He'd sit in it for hours playing
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Date: 2016-10-12 10:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2016-10-12 10:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2016-10-12 10:56 pm (UTC)And now, by some weird association, I suddenly have the Beatles' Across the Universe playing in my head, "Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup"... :)
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Date: 2016-10-13 02:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2016-10-13 05:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2016-10-14 01:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2016-10-14 01:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2016-10-14 04:35 pm (UTC)