The guys asked me to lead a discussion of the book "The Wright Brothers" by David McCullough. When I was teaching the 5th grade, I taught a unit on the history of transportation. Going from walking to horseback to cars and trucks, while developing sailing ships and engine-driven ships was a big deal, but not as big as learning to fly. Not just flying, but flying many people and heavy loads of cargo.
It can't be done! It was tried many times and those trials often resulted in human deaths. We humans just don't have the breast muscles like a robin or an eagle. Leap off a cliff with an Icarus-like set of "wings" and die! But the Wright brothers, bicycle mechanics !, worked and worked and worked. They learned from failures, they studied aeronautics and they did it.
How many times have I flown? We can't remember all our flights. No deaths. We have flown with three of our four greatgrandchildren and plan a flight with the 4th this summer. Each little kid who sees the ground retreating and grasps that we are in the air, the air, gets excited. People over the centuries wanted to do that, and now we do.
