Fire In The Sky

The year was 1977, location, study hall, Boardman High School. So I’m sitting in study hall bored out of my skull waiting for the bell to ring when all of a sudden, the school had a power outage and all the lights went out. Being in a school, Boardman High School that has no windows, the study hall room was pitch black. This offered the perfect opportunity to test my theory on whether a paper airplane would fly while on fire.

With the help of my friend (Fellow accomplice) Guy, I constructed a jet airplane of notebook paper. Believe me when I say it was not easy making the folds in the paper in the dark, but it was a very good design and was ready for flight.

I borrowed a lighter and ignited the back end of the jet. Holding it for a second to make sure the flames took hold of the plane, I pivoted and sent the plane airborne. What a beautiful sight seeing the plane crackling on fire streaking across the double wide study hall room. I gave it a good toss and its trajectory was true leading it to the open door of the study hall.

Then it happened. As the plane reached its zenith and began its descent fate stepped in and reared its ugly head. Actually, it was more of ugly hair. Just as the plane was hitting the doorway, in walked a tall red headed kid with a huge Afro. Yus, you guessed it; the plane made a beeline right for his head and landed in his hair. In mere seconds, he didn’t have an Afro anymore. The silence was broken as the kid was screaming slapping his hands on his head to put the fire out raging on the top of his head.

Seconds later, the fire was extinguished and the red headed kid had calmed down. Of course there was a Spanish Inquisition type investigation following but no one but the two of us really knew who the perpetrators were. We didn’t break under the scrutiny even though the principal believed it was me.

BTW, the red headed kid had a new hairdo the next day, very short and close-cropped. No skin was burned, just his hair.

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