Just a Dad & His Toy Helicopter

• Lori Palminteri
• Uncategorized
• June 15, 2014

My dad has a collection of toy helicopters.  He thinks you’ll be impressed by his piloting skills of the miniature flying machine.  He’ll have you put out your hand flat, and land it on your palm.  There’s about an equal chance that it will land on your hand as the tiny propeller may hit your eye.

It’s as endearing as an ecstatic child, and also as annoying as an ecstatic child.

Last year on Father’s Day, we bought him a Brookstone helicopter to add to his collection.  He flies it almost every day.  Practicing his take off and landing, navagating through the wind, like instead of flying just a remote controlled toy, he’s actually in the cockpit as if he’s living his own Indiana Jones adventure in his imagination.

Almost a a year later, two days before Father’s Day, my father brought his copter outside for a flight.  It was a bit windy, but he was confident he could control it, cocky even.

He takes off with ease, but mother nature has other plans, and the wind takes it up.  My father responds, trying to steer it clear of tree branches.  He tries to bring it down but he’s losing the battle with the wind.  It’s getting blown off his property.  He follows.  The signal is strong.  He can save it.  There’s time.  But after every successful maneuver to bring it to safety, a gust of wind pushes it further and further.  He’s on someone else’s lawn.  A neighbor’s.  He’s not sure which neighbor’s, and at the moment he doesn’t care.  He just doesn’t want to lose it.

It’s too late.  The wind takes it and it’s gone.  My father, he’s not going to give up.   He explores the neighbor’s yards.  Telling them of his plight.  It’s hard to tell if they think he’s crazy.  They might.  But I think they admire his passion.  There’s jealousy even, that a toy can bring him so much joy, like a child.

He returns home, telling his wife, my mother, of the great loss.  She doesn’t really care so much, but she knows how much he loved it, so she feels sympathy for him, no less.

His daughter returns to her childhood home.  She hears the news about the copter “I searched, and searched,” her father says, “but there’s no way if would work after that thunderstorm anyway…”

The following day, his daughter is lounging on the porch, drinking a cocktail, enjoying a peaceful moment in the sun.  A car pulls up.  A stranger.  She’s certain she’s never seen him before.

“Excuse me,” he says, “did your dad lose a helicopter?”

There, in his hand, was the helicopter.

On Father’s Day, my dad went to the yard to discover that the helicopter still could fly.  It survived the crash, and the storm.  Small, but resilient, and lots of fun.  A lot like my father.