The McEntire kids stood on the second floor balcony of the Salt Lake City & County building waiting for the Annual Day After Thanksgiving Paper Airplane Throwing Contest to start. An unknowing observer might assume we were in large Gothic church, but they would never guess it was a government office building. My parents like to tell the story of driving past it when I was little and my squeaky voice calling out, “That’s where Jesus works!” If Jesus was on duty that day he would witness a great victory. My airplane design was perfected through countless practice runs from our back deck resulting in an unbeatable masterpiece of paper aviation.
Memory, the silent shadow who steers our mind like an unreliable coachman, has robbed me of most of the details of that day, but I remember the echoing tile floors as we walked in and the ancient folding table with a scarred wooden top and rickety metal legs. I picked a pristine sheet from the stack on the table and folded my masterpiece. The finished creation was a crisp and creased beauty with a silhouette like a jet on Top Gun. Dana, my bothersome younger sister came up to me and asked if I would make her plane since she didn’t know how. I agreed, taking pride in how well I could make them. But being a selfish teenager, I didn’t want her to beat me so I folded it sloppily so it would fly like a turtle.
After an introduction and announcement of some kind, the mob of children from around the valley lined up along the balcony. Below us was a park with tall trees, picnic tables and a parking lot where I saw our station wagon. I didn’t want my plane to get stuck in one of the trees so I rehearsed in my mind all the practice throws from our back deck that resulted in a long, smooth flight. Everyone counted to three and let their airplanes fly.
Never has there been a worse throw in the history of paper airplane throwing than mine from the balcony that day. In my excitement for the perfect flight my jerky arms threw the airplane almost straight at the ground. I was going to be sick. Beside me came shrieks of joy as Dana watched hers sail through the air and into the parking lot. My only memories past that point are fleeting images of the glittering trophy she brought home. For years that trophy mocked me for my failed attempt at sibling sabotage. It was cosmic justice for using an act of kindness for greedy ends.
Years later when the sting had long worn off, Dana gave me the trophy during one of the three times she ever cleaned her room. “It’s really yours,” she’d said. At the time I thought this was a very kind thing to do, and I appreciated the gesture.
Although I didn’t win the contest myself, knowing that I made the winning plane was an accomplishment I carried with pride for decades afterwords. Fast forward to a few years ago on a Summer evening in my parents back yard. The whole family was there; kids running wild, burgers in our bellies and cold sodas in hand. We laughed and told stories of the fun we had growing up. Confessions arose and episodes of juvenile deception came out. I don’t remember what any of them were now, but some were funny, some my mom didn’t want to hear, but one I remember very clearly. It dealt a crushing blow to my ego and annihilated a sense of accomplishment I’d carried with me for 25 years. Dana told us that during the paper airplane throwing contest she cheated and moved her plane farther out than where it landed before the judges could see. Her confession got many laughs and even now I smile at the audacity of that 13 year old girl. But that didn’t change the fact that one of my early life accomplishments was based on a lie.
Pondering this opens a metaphysical rabbit hole that scholars and zealots have and will debate for as long as the sun shines and humans draw breath. Luckily this revelation didn’t crack the foundations of my sense of self or force a new paradigm of reality onto my psyche. It’s just a funny ending to an already amusing memory of sibling rivalries and childhood joys.
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