The gravity of physics

I mean, how could it be? We lived on a veritable playground of possibilities, split between an airport with its ceaseless buzz of activity and a farm with fields to explore and livestock to boss around. It was a childhood painted in vivid, unpredictable strokes—and, like all great masterpieces, a little chaotic.

This story begins with my brothers, Bud and Travis, who had discovered a game that could only be described as farm kid daredevilry. Riding in the bed of the farm truck as it rumbled across the fields, they’d leap into the air, see how high they could go, and measure their success by how far down the truck bed they landed. It was stupid fun, sure, but mesmerizing for my young eyes. Yet, as I watched them, I thought, I can do better.

Around that same time, Mom and Dad announced that we’d be flying to North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, for a week’s vacation at a family friend’s compound. This was met with the kind of excitement only an airport brat could muster. You see, our family “station wagon” wasn’t some rusty Oldsmobile—it was a Piper Cherokee Six. With its six seats, it was part airplane, part personal sanctuary. Mom and Dad, of course, claimed the pilot and co-pilot seats, Bud and Travis had the middle, and I had the back row all to myself, complete with my very own door. A door neither of my brothers had. Score one for the brat. A kingdom unto myself.Our family “station wagon” wasn’t some rusty Oldsmobile—it was a Piper Cherokee Six.

I spent the week planning and preparing, making sure that everything was just right for the coming experiment. I was already drafting my acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Physics—at such a tender age, too.

It was during the buildup to this trip that I decided to elevate the truck-bed game to its ultimate stage. I would recreate the airborne leap—but inside the cabin of the Piper. All I needed was my baseball glove and a ball.

Once we were in the air, climbing past the clouds, I readied my experiment. With my glove securely on my left hand and my favorite baseball in my right, I visualized the arc it would take. The plan was simple: toss the ball up, let the speed of the airplane take over, and watch the ball soar back into my waiting glove. It was going to be glorious.

I held my glove in front of my face, extended my right hand, and tossed the ball up. And…it fell directly back into my lap. Huh. That wasn’t right. I tried again. Same result. I was baffled. The airplane was moving 160 miles per hour—why wasn’t my ball cooperating? I tried a third time, hoping maybe I just needed a better flick of the wrist. Nope. The ball remained stubbornly earthbound in my lap.

Disheartened, I abandoned my experiment, letting my mind drift to the scenery below as we descended into North Wilkesboro. The trip itself was spectacular—mountain views, good company, and full-on adventure. But in the back of my mind, the mystery of my failed experiment lingered like an unsolved riddle.

Upon returning home to Allendale, I sought out Billy, one of our family’s trusted pilots and a frequent target for my endless stream of questions. He was the kind of guy who could explain almost anything, and he always did it with a twinkle in his eye. I laid out the whole fiasco for him—the glove, the ball, my brilliant plan, and its baffling failure.

To my horror, Billy burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter, doubling over as if I’d just performed the funniest stand-up routine in the world. He was laughing so hard I was genuinely concerned he might crack a rib—or worse, pee his pants. When he finally caught his breath, he managed to wheeze out a term that would stick with me forever: Relative motion.

Billy tried to explain it in terms my young brain could understand. “Listen,” he said, “you know how flies always seem to buzz around the cabin, even though the airplane’s moving fast? If relative motion didn’t exist, those flies would be plastered against the back of the cabin like bugs on a windshield.”

That image—an army of helpless flies pinned to the bulkhead—set him off laughing all over again. And maybe it was the absurdity of it all, or maybe it was the way he explained it, but the lightbulb finally clicked for me. It wasn’t that my experiment was flawed—it was that I hadn’t understood the rules of the universe yet. Physics, as it turned out, had its own ideas about how things worked.

I promise I was a smart kid. Really, I was. But some lessons take a little longer to stick, especially when they come with the sound of a grown man laughing himself silly at your expense. And that’s the thing about childhood—it’s as much about learning what doesn’t work as it is about figuring out what does.

Years later, it’s still one of my favorite stories to tell. Because while the ball didn’t soar through the cabin like I’d hoped, the lesson sure did. And if I close my eyes, I can still hear Billy’s laughter echoing across the tarmac—fading now, like the contrail of an airplane that’s long since flown beyond the horizon.

Keith Browning Sr., from Allendale, South Carolina, is an airport brat who grew up at his family’s FBO, Browning Aviation, which inspires his blog, A Face in the Clouds.