HTDN_107
HTDN_108
Fold these two halves together and then fold back the two thick pieces the other way so that the folded part lies even with the bottom.
We used to take the bottom and tear back through the thick part, to make two little tabs, one going one way, the other the other, to sort of hold the whole thing together.
HTDN_109
Teachers used to take these away from us, too.
HTDN_110
Then I used to make a different kind; it’s my recollection that I invented this kind, but chances are that’s just my memory, and I probably saw it in a book or learned it from another kid. Anyhow, the idea was to make a paper airplane that looked more like an airplane. You start off the same way, folding down the center and opening up, folding the two ends in.
HTDN_112a
Then you take the point and bend it back so that the very point evens up with the cross line.
HTDN_112b
HTDN_112c
Fold the whole thing over, and then fold back the two wings a little ways up from the first original center fold. Fold it back in half again and with scissors, or by tearing, make an airplane shape, like this.
HTDN_113a
Now fold the wings out, and fold the little tail pieces out. Make the tear and make the tab like before.
HTDN_113b
These fly much more like an airplane than the old kind, and you can even experiment with bending the tail pieces up to make the plane loop the loop, or one side up to make it go in a circle. Just generally, with these or with gliders that you can get at an airplane model store, to make a plane loop the loop, throw it down, to make it go in a circle and come back to you, hold it in your right hand if you’re right-handed, your left if you’re left-handed, with the bottom of the plane toward you and the wings straight up and down and sort of sweep it backhanded right across your own front.
HTDN_114
There’s a way of making a helicopter, too. By the way, when I was a kid, it was clearly understood that there never would ever be a real full-size, man-carrying helicopter. It had been very carefully proven, scientifically, that it was impossible ever to make one that would get off the ground. I don’t know what happened to the scientists who proved this: maybe they met the scientist who had proved that, by all the laws of nature, it was impossible for a bee to fly. A bee just wasn’t made right to fly. I’m not making fun of scientists; it wasn’t so long ago that all the scientific theories in the world were based on the theory that it was impossible to split the atom. Well, of course. Everything is impossible until it’s done. Then whatever has been done is possible, and there’s a new thing that’s impossible.
The helicopters we made weren’t really helicopters. They just looked something like what we now know as helicopters. They were made from a piece of paper, and they worked very much the same way as the maple wings I told you about when I was telling about polly-noses. Take a piece of stiff paper or thin cardboard, the size isn’t important, and cut it to this shape.
HTDN_116
Bend the wings back, and fold over the bottom part so that the bottom part is three thicknesses thick, and glue it or staple it or paper-clip it.
HTDN_117
Take this up to a high place, and let it drop.
HTDN_118
If you can get a hold of a chicken or a turkey wishbone, some chewing gum, a burnt kitchen match and a rubber band, you can make a kind of silly thing. You chew this wishbone good and clean, and if you’ve got the patience, let it dry until it’s good and stiff. Chew the gum until it’s good and chewy. Take a little wad of it and stick it on the wishbone where there’s that flat place. (If you live on a tarred street and the tar gets sticky in the summer, tar is even better for this than chewing gum.5) Loop the rubber band over the two arms of the wishbone, out near the end, put a match in between the rubber band, twist it up good so that if you let it go it would whirl around to the other side of the wishbone and be stopped, only don’t let it go.
HTDN_119a
HTDN_119b
Stick the end of the match into the chewing gum and set the whole thing down on a table.
HTDN_120
After a little while the twisted rubber band will pull the match away from the chewing gum and the whole thing will pop up in the air. Of course, you never know how long it’s going to take for the match to come loose. I’ll guarantee only one thing; it won’t ever let loose at the exact moment you’re expecting it. If you put it on the table next to your father when he’s making out his income-tax return, it should produce some interesting results. He may tell you what he did to scare his father when he was a kid, and he may even show you what his father did to him when he scared him when he was a kid.
There are lots of other things you can do, all alone, by yourself, but these are about all I can think of right now that aren’t specialized in some way.
I’m really serious about the library: that’s the best place to learn more. We did lots of other things when we were kids, like collecting bugs, and wild flowers, and frogs, and snakes, and stones—and in the library I promise you there will be a really expert book on each of these, and on many other subjects, written by people who’ve made a life study of those special things. There will be books about trees and radio sets and telescopes and badminton and Indian crafts and metal work, about how to make bows and arrows, how to swim, how to—oh, there’s no end. There’s even a book on how to find a how-to book.
Some silly grownup has even written a book on how to read a book.
But if you’ve gotten this far, I know you know how to read a book.
There’s only one thing left to tell you: the name of this book is How to Do Nothing with Nobody All Alone by Yourself . I understand some people get worried about kids who spend a lot of time all alone, by themselves. I do a little worrying about that, but I worry about something else even more; about kids who don’t know how to spend any time all alone, by themselves. It’s something you’re going to be doing a whole lot of, no matter what, for the rest of your lives. And I think it’s a good thing to do; you get to know yourself, and I think that’s the most important thing in the whole world.
Index
Acorns
eating
sling ammunition
Air, pressing on leather suckers
Airplanes, paper
Apple whipping
Arrows
throwing-stick
umbrella
Ash tray, clamshell
Balsa wood, boomerang
Bark, designs in
Baskets
burr
peach-pit
Ba-voom thing
Bees, pussy-willow
Blackjacks
Boat, paddle-wheel
Bolas
Boomerangs
Boy Scout knives
Bracelets, clamshell
Bugs Fish,
books about
Bull-roarers
Burrs
Busted Umbrellas
Button buzz saw
Case knife
Cats, pussy-willow
Checkering, pencils and branches
Cigar-box things
boat
fiddles
guitars
Clamshells
Cornstalk fiddle
Cross-boomerang
Dandelions
Darts
airplane
needle
Feathers, arrow
Fence, pussy-willow cats
Fiddles
cigar-box
cornstalk
Fish, peach-pit
Grass, squawker
Guitars, cigar-box
Gun, rubber-band
Hairpins, slingshot
Handbook for the Curious, Howes
Handker
chief blackjacks
Handkerchief parachutes
Handles, slingshot
Helicopter, paper
Horse chestnuts shining
Howes, Paul Griswold
Ice pick
Indoor boomerangs
Jewel weed
Jig saw
Jumping thing
Killers
Knives
Boy Scout
Leather
books about
David sling
slingshot
Leather sucker
Library
bee books
getting books from
Lollipop sticks, slingshot ammunition
Maple seeds
Matchbook, boomerang
Miniature slingshot
Mumbly-peg
how named
Munjigo-peg
Music, things that make
Needle dart
Nuts, slingshot ammunition
Oilstone
Orange-crate wood, boomerang
Paddle-wheel boat
Paper
airplanes
helicopter
pussy-willow bees
wings
Paste
Peach-pit things
Pencils
knife work on
names on
slingshot ammunition
spool tank
Penknife
Pin piano
Pistol, rubber-band
Pocketknives
Polly-noses
Pussy willows
Risk, mumbly-peg
Rubber bands
boomerang
gun
jumping thing
paddle-wheel boat
slingshot
spool slingshot
spool tank
Scout knives
Sharpening knives
Shoestring, horse chestnuts
Slice the Cheese, mumbly-peg and other
Slice the Ham
Slingshots
David kind
fork kind
old-fashioned kind
spool kind
Spool slingshot
Spool tank
Squawker
Suction cup
Teachers
airplanes
boomerangs
miniature slingshots
Trash cans, stuff from
Turtles, peach-pit
Umbrella bows and arrows
Walking sticks, making
Whipping apples
Whittling
Willow whistle
Wishbone, jumping thing
Wood-and-wire carrying handles
Wood fork, slingshot
Yo-yo
Acknowledgments
Thanks are due my wife, who drew the pictures, and my sons Dan and Joe, who helped me make all the things in the book for her to draw.
1 The other night a friend of mine, who lived only six blocks away when we were kids, told me that he used to make the washers out of the paraffin that used to be on the top of jars of homemade jam. Now he tells me!
2 Now I’m sure I could do it right now, because I just did. I went out in the front yard and set it up just the way the picture goes and the third time I tried, I did it. I’m still not sure I could do it right this minute.
3 It has been brought to my attention that some kids don’t know how to make paste any more, that they think paste is only something that you can buy. With us, it was the other way around. We knew how to make it, and later on found out it was possible to buy it. Well, I’m not going to draw any pictures or give any careful instructions here. You take flour and water and mix it until it’s paste, and if you have some salt you can put it in, too. I don’t know if the salt does any good, but we figured we had nothing to lose. It wasn’t our salt.
4 I hear tell hairpins are pretty rare now. Maybe you can make them out of bobby-pins, but I don’t know about this.
5 That stuff called silly putty works, too, but that costs money.
Copyright © 1958 by Robert Paul Smith
Copyright © renewed 1986 by the Estate of Robert Paul Smith
First published by W. W. Norton and Company 1958 Published by Tin House Books 2010
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, contact Tin House Books, 2601 NW Thurman St., Portland, OR 97210.
Parental Advisory: This book describes activities that may be dangerous if not done exactly as directed or that may be inappropriate for young children. All of these activities should be carried out under adult supervision only. The author’s estate and the publisher expressly disclaim all liability for any injury or damages that may result from engaging in the activities contained in this book.
Published by Tin House Books, Portland, Oregon, and New York, New York Distributed to the trade by Publishers Group West, 1700 Fourth St., Berkeley, CA 94710, www.pgw.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Smith, Robert Paul.
How to do nothing with nobody all alone by yourself / by Robert Paul
Smith.—Tin House Books ed.
p. cm.
Originally published: New York : Norton, 1958.
eISBN : 978-0-982-50484-0
1. Amusements. I. Title.
GV1203.S63 2010
793—dc22
2009037103
How to Do Nothing with Nobody All Alone by Yourself Page 6