A Boy, A Farmer, And A Macaroni Airplane
How Disappointing • I Discovered A New Star • We All Scream For Ice Cream
One Minute Wit
How Disappointing
I studied like crazy to make the grade. I worked my fingers to the bone to earn tuition. I finally got accepted and fulfilled my dream of attending The University of Oxford.
This was my chance to learn. Really learn. All the great truths and mysteries I had pondered all my life were now within my grasp.
There was one class I was particularly interested in. Time Management.
I enrolled.
What a disappointment.
It had absolutely nothing to do with time travel.
50-Word Story
I Discovered A New Star
Tonight, I looked up at the sky and discovered a new star.
I couldn’t really see it with my eyes, but I know it’s there.
Eventually, someone will invent a telescope powerful enough to see it, thereby proving me right.
But they will be too late.
I already discovered it.
Doodle
We All Scream For Ice Cream
In the summertime.
I am not sure why I sometimes include doodles in my newsletter. They are not great art. They are doodles. But that is the whole point of doodling. It is drawing for pure fun, not caring if it’s good.
Some of my doodles are humorous. But this one just captures a moment in time for me. Childhood. When an ice cream cone was a treat. I hope when you look at it, you remember some innocent fun in your youth. And hopefully smile.
Story
A Boy, A Farmer, And A Macaroni Airplane
Plus an uncharted island in The English Channel where they speak Italian
As a boy, Jimmy Wilson dreamed of being a pilot. Unfortunately, he lived with his mum in a small flat in London. He knew he could never afford flight lessons, and his eyesight was too poor to become a military aviator.
But Jimmy would not be deterred. Using his mum’s laptop, Jimmy researched aircraft construction and played flight simulators. He wasn’t interested in the game aspect, just the learning to fly part. After a year or so, he was confident he could successfully fly a small aircraft on his own.
Soon fate intervened, as fate often does, and Jimmy’s mum got a job out in the country working for a small-town lawyer. Fate must have been in a generous mood that week because they ended up renting a farmhouse on several acres with a huge shed. As a double bonus, inside the shed sat an old, working tractor. Jimmy saw the tractor and immediately envisioned its motor powering his very own aircraft.
Jimmy used the shed as a hanger and set about building his own aircraft. Of course, Jimmy was only twelve and couldn’t afford materials to construct a plane. But he could afford macaroni. You see, fate wasn’t done being generous just yet. Jimmy started helping Farmer Brown, who lived next door, with chores. He fed the animals, milked the cows, gathered eggs, anything he could to earn a little money.
The old farmer liked having Jimmy around, so he gladly paid him for his help, although he really enjoyed his company more than he needed the help. The farmer and his wife never had children of their own, so Jimmy was fawned over by both of them. Jimmy enjoyed the attention.
Jimmy had built a hat out of macaroni once and figured the same principles could be applied to building aircraft. Every penny he earned was spent on macaroni and glue. Month after month Jimmy painstakingly pieced together the macaroni into aircraft parts. Once the body was complete, he got farmer Brown to help him install the motor and wheels from the tractor.
I imagine it should be considered a criminal offense to help a just barely teenager build a working macaroni aircraft. But there was nothing on the books, so the farmer felt safe from the long arm of the law. Still, I have to wonder what he thought Jimmy’s mum would say had she known. Which she didn’t.
The two of them were quite good at keeping secrets. I certainly wouldn’t want to explain my participation in such an undertaking to any mum I’ve known. I suspect he told himself that the boy would never actually try to fly the thing. It must be just a lark. He would surely outgrow it. Or discover girls.
Well, it wasn’t a lark. A few junkyard and hardware store trips later, and the aircraft was ready to fly on Jimmy’s 14th birthday. I suspect this is when common sense finally took hold in Farmer Brown’s skull. He explained to Jimmy that while building the aircraft was great fun, it was far too dangerous to fly a macaroni airplane. Jimmy eased farmer Brown’s mind by saying he would never dream of actually flying it, he just wanted to taxi it around the field and pretend.
Farmer Brown was relieved. Of course, Jimmy was lying. A talent most teenagers acquire early on. So they fired up the motor and Jimmy taxied the aircraft around the field a few times. He even got old Farmer Brown to give it a whirl. Which he enjoyed far more than he let on. Adults are like that.
That night, aided by the light of a full moon, Jimmy started up his prized creation and started taxiing down the field. Jimmy knew precisely the speed he needed to lift off, and when he reached it, he rose into the night sky. The plane flew surprisingly well for a machine built out of macaroni. Soon he was high above the English Channel. He planned to use one-third of his fuel and then return home.
But fate is a fickle friend, and clouds started rolling in. Usually, this would be more inconvenience than anything. But these weren’t ordinary clouds. These were steam clouds. Extremely rare, steam clouds are made of warm steam. No one knows how they form, and they are rarely recorded. In fact, this was the first recorded case in existence.
As you might imagine, steam and macaroni do not mix well outside of a cooking pot. Soon the aircraft started getting soft and expanding. Jimmy knew he only had minutes until the airplane would be too rubbery to fly. So Jimmy looked for a place to land. Unfortunately, he was over the English Channel. But to his relief, Jimmy spotted an island directly below. He made his descent, and by the time he attempted a landing, the aircraft was unresponsive. Jimmy steeled himself for a crash landing.
To his great surprise, he landed in a tiny lake of marinara sauce located in the center of the island. The now rubbery consistency of the macaroni softened his crash, as did the thickness of the marinara sauce. Jimmy waded out of the shallow lake and collapsed on the shore.
After his heart stopped beating at such a shocking pace, he noticed a road running near the lake. Jimmy walked over and saw a fork in the road. He picked it up. Returning to the lake, he began eating some of the wreckage debris. Mum always said not to waste food. And he was a little peckish after his flight.
Now full, and without an airplane, Jimmy began walking down the road. Soon he was met by a truck. The truck stopped, and a couple of men got out. They started speaking Italian. Jimmy did not speak Italian, but he had heard it enough to recognize it. He asked them if they spoke English. Which, thankfully, they did.
The two men, twin brothers, said they heard his plane crashing and came to see what had happened. Jimmy told them the story of his adventure. They were fascinated. Apparently, they didn’t realize that an aircraft could be constructed out of macaroni. They kept smiling and poking each other in the ribs throughout the entire telling of the tale.
Jimmy asked them what island they were on, and they both laughed. They told him it was not an island at all. It was, in fact, a gigantic ship constructed out of spaghetti noodles, designed to look like an island. Jimmy knew he had found kindred spirits. It also explained the lake of marinara sauce.
The brothers gave Jimmy a ride back to England on their spaghetti island. Then to Jimmy’s great delight, a ride back to his house in their spaghettimobile.
Jimmy’s mum never learned of his midnight flight. Jimmy told farmer Brown, who gave him a good scolding out of a sense of duty. But secretly, he loved the story.
The next day Jimmy started buying boxes of spaghetti.
I typically write a lot of dialog in my stories, so I wanted to try writing one with no dialog. I also wanted it to be quirky. This was the result.
Happy Monday.
Mark