We have a sort of tradition in my company.  I call it an annual tradition but really, it’s just every few years when I remember to get everyone together to play along.  The tradition is that around the Thanksgiving holiday, we fly paper airplanes where the longest flight wins.  In our previous location (we bought a new building!) we could fly the planes from the roof top.  That building was 4 stories tall and perfect for such a contest.  Our new building, however, is one story and in the valley besides so we had to improvise.

Our place is located in downtown South Charleston, WV.  South Charleston is locally famous for several things but most people know it best by the large Indian Mound in the center of the city.  I capitalize “Indian Mound” because it is an ancient Adena Indian burial ground.  It’s a landmark in the Charleston area and is well known as “the Mound”.  My building is a few blocks away so we decided it was a perfect place from which to fly our paper airplanes this year.

Weather here has been random as always so on the appointed day, we had to contend with both snow and wind..  My intrepid co-workers braved the weather and we flew planes.  I thought I had it all wrapped up this year.  A family member bought me an airplane add-on that seemed like it would take the cake…it was a motorized propeller that attaches to the plane.  While the idea was awesome, it failed pretty badly.  I think the wind got the best of my design.  I did come in last place though!

Folks created all sorts of planes and one guy had his kids doing research on the best planes all week leading up to the event.  The winner, though, sort of exceeded all expectations.  One person attached two helium balloons to her plane and set it off into the wild white yonder.  It sort of bumbled along the rooftops for awhile but definitely stayed in the air the longest.  It won both time and distance awards!

Although I took the loss pretty hard, it was really cool to get out with a bunch of folks at my office and have a good time in preparation to the holidays.  Does anyone else have such traditions?