Paper Airplanes

[Note to Mom Klem: I’m sorry you have to hear about this.]

[Note to the gentle reader: The following activity is not encouraged, endorsed, or suggested.]


Q4 1987

Starting my third year in college I had been accepted as a Mechanical Engineering (ME) major. The math, physics, and chemistry classes I took while my major was undeclared were manageable, but this, my first quarter as an ME major, was grueling. Seven weeks as an ME and I realized that this was not for me. My mind was made up to change majors again.

A good friend of mine and study partner, seeing that I had lately been lacking some zip, suggested a study break one evening. We’ll call him Jones. We went to the Physics building, a building that we were quite familiar from our prior two years. Most buildings on campus were either unlocked until very late into the night or not locked at all. The thinking perhaps was to leave the buildings unlocked so that students could commandeer a classroom and study. This access, however, also allowed for the possibility of less than studious behavior to be carried out.

On this night the two of us entered the building, obtained a stack of handouts, and proceeded to the seventh floor. There was a hallway window that opened onto a four foot wide ledge. With our stack of papers we stepped through the unscreened window and sat on the ledge with our legs dangling over. Dangling seven floors up.

From where we sat there was the Geology building 100 feet away and, otherwise, just a wide open courtyard. During the day this would be very busy with student pedestrians, skateboards, and a few folks walking their bicycles; a strict enforcing of bicycling only in the bike paths prevailed at UC Santa Barbara. Late at night this courtyard was largely blank of people.

We made paper airplanes with the absconded stack of handouts and launched one after the other. My airplanes sailed poorly compared to those of Jones Aviation. Fun at the time, being so high up, and behaving recklessly. For 30 minutes we launched, then returned to the safety of terra firma.


We did this twice without incident. Twenty years later I reflect back in horror at what could have been. One wrong step, horseplay, or anything unanticipated could easily have yielded death. Yet, I exist.
-klem