Learning to Fly

 Learning to Fly

Noel Laflin

10-28-21

A friend of mine turns sixty-nine today, which means he’s older than me once again – even if it’s only less than by two months.

But despite that, we were still childhood best friends, first becoming so when at age three (or thereabouts), I would stand on my side of the street and yell out his name until he appeared in his doorway and wave me over to watch Superman reruns. This led to fantasies of actually thinking we could fly ourselves, just like the Man of Steel, if we tied towels about our neck, let the long fabric lay against our back to form a cape, and jump off the back of furniture in attempts to fly.

We always aimed for his folks’ couch, just in case we failed to fly, and I am here today to say just how glad we were that his folks had a soft one.

But in short order, that two-month age difference put us in different grades, a fact that bothered me greatly when he went off to kindergarten a year before I was deemed old enough to join him.  Consequently, he flew off to school and I was left at home watching Superman reruns on my own. 

My mom told me that because I was born in December, I had to wait another year before attending kindergarten. I never understood the rule, but there you have it.

So, I continued to practice my flying skills off our own living room furniture. I might have been alone now in each repeated attempt, but determined nonetheless.

I’m glad my folks had a soft couch too.

In hindsight, I now think that common sense - or more likely, the lack thereof - might have had something to do with when one was actually allowed to attend school.

However, I am still puzzled, all these years later, as to how my slightly older friend got away with it.