Cranes, Cranes, All Around

When my oldest son, Thomas, was a newly minted teenager, still with small yet nimble fingers, he learned to make paper cranes.  It was his first complex project in origami, the ancient Japanese art of folding paper into three-dimensional shapes, that almost seem to come to life.

I was so impressed I asked him to teach me.  With a pointed beak, a tail aiming upwards, and triangular wings giving balance to the body, it was the long neck that made it take on the essence of a crane, as though it really was about to take flight.

At one time, I thought I might get to a point in my life where I wouldn’t learn something new every day.  But some days, the new things you do learn—even in midlife and just past the big FOUR-OH—can be some of the most interesting and useful you have ever learned.

Tom explained it consisted of simple folds, until you got to the “tricky” part.  That was the reverse fold.  You have a diamond shape, and pull down the top point until it sort of backs over itself and the whole thing reverts into being inside out.  It is strange, but that is why true origami paper has different colors on the two sides, so the difference can be seen.

We would usually make normal-size cranes with a three-inch wingspan.  But then we would find a piece of paper wrapped around silverware and a cloth napkin in a fine restaurant.  You unstuck it from itself and cut it into a little more than a one-inch square, which is the starting shape for all origami projects.  It would take smaller fingers than mine to make this into a little green crane, so my son did, and its beauty wasn’t lost in miniature.  If anything, it became like a jewel.

Of course, you could take a single sheet of newspaper and make large cranes, but they tended to flop around, so there was an optimal size paper to use.

But, other than the beauty of the little folded images, what good were they, and what else could you do with them?  The answer presented itself when I was onboard an American Airlines flight.  In the seat behind me was a four-year old who was as objectionable to his parents as he was noisy.  I tried to keep myself from asserting my normal mode of, “Do I have to be everyone’s father?” so I came up with another idea. 

I took the airline magazine from the net pouch in front of me and skimmed through it until I found a colorful page, a world map in blue and green.  I tore it out, neatly folded it in half, trimmed the rough edges, and had an eight-inch square.

In the next few minutes, a beautiful green and blue crane was hatched.  I unfastened my seatbelt and stood in the aisle.  This took the attention of the little recalcitrant from his parents, and then they also saw the big guy looking down at them.

Stretching my hand to be in front of the lad, I rhetorically asked the row of family members, “Do you think Johnny would like a crane?”

The boy accepted it, and did not argue when I followed with, “And you say what to the nice man who just gave you a present?”

“Thank you,” he said, compliantly, and that was that.  No zooming airplane sounds, but he did fly it back in forth for the longest time, from one hand to the other, and through the air but with the quietness of actual distant cranes on their long flights.  The origami avian was a hit.

In fact, this became standard procedure for me, thinking that, always, there would be some child on a plane nearby, if not several rows away, who might need a toy part way through the flight, if not to calm them down, at least to distract their attention.

So as soon as any plane took off, I would tear out the world map page and create a crane, even if it remained in the seat pouch in front of me for most of the flight.  And if we made it through an entire flight with no juvenile complaints or whimpering, I would find the nearest child of that certain age, which can be entertained by such things, and tell her, “You have been so well-behaved on this flight, I thought you might like a crane.”

It was the reward for peace on the flight, and I think the little bird reinforced her good behavior.

I do recall one flight when most of my five children were onboard, and there turned out to be a whole gaggle of kiddies farther back who were behaving in an atrocious way.  I mustered my own children and told them, “Page 85!”  They opened their airline magazines to find the green and blue page and, with what could only be called an “origami team,” we created a crane, each, and a couple of us made more than one in record time, if there could even be such a thing.  But fold we did, like mad-origamists, and in a few minutes they were all on my tray table.

I gathered the flock and marched back the few rows to the objects of our disaffection and found their adult leader.  I showed her what I had, said that she seemed to have an identical number of students as I had cranes, and asked if she wouldn’t mind distributing them.

Never have you seen such a shocked face on an already-bewildered teacher, who had been fit-to-be-tied with no apparent way out.  But, cranes, cranes, all around, they were handed out, each one held gently, as though precious and made of porcelain.  That would only last so long, as they were play toys, but the cranes had saved the day.

I returned to my seat and thanked my children, who could hear me because the noise from further back had died down.  Fellow passengers nodded their appreciation.  It was truly a success story.

So, my gratitude goes out to my children for pitching in that day, and especially Thomas who, twenty-five years ago, taught his father something new, which would become special for so many children.

December 22, 2019