It was in the fifth grade when the paper plane craze started. Everyday during recess, we pulled a page out of our notepads and made a paper plane, each of us hoping to send it further than our classmates’. Every evening, we went home and worked on our designs. That was when I first heard the word “aerodynamics” and checked out books about it from the local library. The planes would fly down from the third floor into the yard. They would descend quickly and would then stabilize and float the last 10 feet on air before falling on some kid’s head. They would look up, but we were the fifth graders. We were untouchable. It was all fine.

And then one day, my cousin taught me the secret sauce to making the perfect paper plane. He was two years younger but some kid in his class had perfected the art and science of aeronautics. Six years later when he died in a car crash, that was the first thought in my head, that I will always remember the day he taught me how to fold the paper for a plane. He will always be the Wilbur to my Orville.

The new planes went far, a little too far. One day the Principal showed up in the middle of the Science class. I have met thousands of people in my days on earth, none has been as dour as this guy. The extreme redness of his face exacerbated the sense of glumness he constantly radiated – The double chin made it worse. I always thought he was in his early 60s, the guess of an 11-year-old, mind you. When I ran into him at my hometown’s Saturday market in 2013, he still looked exactly the same: tall, glum, double-chinned, and red. That confirmed my guess from back in ‘88 that he likely slept upside down in a corner of his yard.

The Principal started his speech by a sharp criticism of our lack of understanding for the situation the country was in. He explained that our sons die every day so that we can get subsidized notepads. This money could be used to buy a shampoo for a soldier but instead, it was used to turn trees into papers. Papers we so carelessly turned into paper planes and threw out of the third-floor balcony. He continued by praising himself. When he was our age, and after my 2013 glimpse of him I highly doubt that he was ever 11, everybody called him a visionary. So much so that it had become his nickname. Our Principal was one day Fareed the Visionary. We were told that the fifth-grade exam is quite important. We could miss our chance to go to middle school if we continue throwing paper planes. That was our last day at Boeing, well until many years later.

Years passed. I moved to the United States, Texas to Minnesota. I married my beautiful wife and we decided to ride out the recession in 2009 in the great state of Iowa. I worked as a consultant counting corn and she raised money from the local community to fight cancer. One night, she told me about this high school basketball game in the City of Ottumwa. She had to go there for fundraising and there was a 90-minute drive late at night. I could accompany her on the drive and we had two coveted free tickets, so while Ottumwa was not exactly the Mecca of Basketball, why not?

They gave us all a piece of white paper, 11 x 8.5 to be exact. We will be told what to do with them during the halftime. Stephanie got busy working, and I started watching my first all-American basketball game from the highest row. The kids came in. Ottumwa high school on one side and Fairfield high school on the other. They all chest bumped and started playing a game of basketball with the ferocity of teenage boys trying to impress a girl somewhere.

There comes the halftime. “Please take out the papers you were given at the entrance. Please write your names on the papers and make a paper plane. On the count of three, you will throw your paper planes towards the center of the court. The one closest to the center will win a special prize.” Even 21 years later, there did not exist a fold in that paper plane I could not remember. On the count of three, hundreds of paper planes flew in Ottumwa high school’s basketball stadium, and then there was one finding its way, slowly and surely, towards the center of the court. The announcer did not even have to move, the plane lightly hit his pants and fell right by his feet. “And the name here is AALLEE FARNOUD.” I stood up and walked towards the announcer. As I climbed down the stairs, a farmer sporting a long white beard turned his head towards me from the first row: “You really threw it from way back there, man?” I simply smiled.

The announcer asked me whether I wanted to say a word. I thanked my elementary school classmates who had helped me perfect the design. The stadium burst in laughter. Standing there in the center of that small stadium, I remembered “our sons who had died”, “the subsidy that could become a shampoo for a soldier”, and Fareed the Visionary. The announcer passed me the special prize. It was a basket with personal hygiene items. A transparent bottle of light brown shampoo looked at me directly in the eye. I said “Thank you Ottumwa!”, and passed the microphone back. The way back up the stairs was a little blurry.