Balloon Trial
Posted at 5:45 AM on October 16, 2009
by Dale Connelly
(20 Comments)
The news of the day is dominated by the wild balloon chase in Colorado yesterday.
It was a real "cat-in-tree" situation - people were horrified by the thought that a six year old might be aloft in a runaway balloon, and utterly powerless to do anything about it. Everyone wanted a happy ending, which is what we got when the balloon came down and it was discovered that Falcon Heene was safe - not in the balloon at all, but hiding at home because he thought his father was mad at him.
Now we're hearing accusations of a hoax and questions about the wisdom of parents having such a thing in the back yard. A giant mock-flying saucer? I would have played with it.
It reminds me of some of the ill-advised and hazardous things I did when I was very young. A neighbor down the road had, on his property, an old, open well. We would go down there and lean on the stones that made up the mouth of the well and stare into the
abyss, tossing in rocks and other things to watch them fall, fall, fall until the faraway splash. When we told our parents about it, they said "Stay away from the well." The rest was up to us. That was parenting in the 60's.
We should have followed that advice, but didn't. The well remained a forbidden, frequently visited attraction for years. Fortunately, nothing bad happened, but really, what were we thinking?
Was there a spooky / scary hazard that was simply irresistable to you as a youth?
Comments (20)
Morning Heartlanders... it was a wild afternoon, watching the story unfold. Glad it did have a happy ending.
When I was five, there was a railroad track that ran behind the house across the street... it was down a hill from the backyard. My friend and I used to put the occasional penny on the track. Luckily we never hung around, but would come back later that day or the next day to search for the flattened coins. When we did find them, they were so cool - flat and squished.
good morning, All -
looks like exciting additions to RH programming. pretty nifty
on topic, everything we did was probably risky/hazardous. we went out the door at 8 am in summer and didn't come in until we were dragged in for supper. during that time we roamed all over and outside of our little town - looked for "hobo camps" along the tracks, sat on the trestles waiting for trains, drank from storm drains (we thought they were springs that only we knew about - i didn't say we were smart, just adventurous :-)
and Dale, we often played "Kathy Well" - re-enacting a small child falling into and drowning in a well. we would have a funeral for her at least once a week.
There was an elevator that stretched from the ground to the top of our barn, used to move bales of hay and straw. Many times we climbed up and down it to get in and out of the haymow. It was a lot more fun than using the inside ladder.
Yesterday I posted an unnaturally proper-sounding explanation of the recent expansion of MPR’s programming to Sioux Falls area listeners through an agreement with Augustana College. The shocking truth is that I plagiarized some of that from an e-mail I got from MPR telling about the change. I'd like to try it again in my own words:
The coolest thing happened last month. MPR News started coming in really clear on my radio, just a hair of a turn on the dial from where the classical station is, and I’m not sure of the exact circumstances, but it has something to do with Augie and MPR friending each other on Facebook.
Now I feel better. Maybe another day I’ll come clean about the times I’ve stolen material from Dale to use in my newsletters to parents. kidding.
Dale, could you fit, Act Naturally, into today's program? The sooner the better because I have to leave early to help throw a bash for Boss's Day. It won't be too wild - we have to party within the normally accepted boundaries of decency, unfortunately.
Barb, my own kids kept telling me this summer about a hobo and his camp near the bike trails. I didn't believe them but told them to stay on the main bike trails. Then, they began using their cell phones to photograph the hobo camp to prove to me that he existed. So... a modern twist on an old adventure.
There was an abandoned house on the other side of the back alley from the house where I grew up. Of course, we were told not to go near the house or the jungle that had grown up around it. We didn't have cell phone cameras to record what we had found there, but I still love to explore and photograph abandoned places.
It's Friday! Wishing everyone a lovely weekend!
Act naturally?
That's not a problem, Donna. But it raises a question - Buck Owens or The Beatles?
Buck!
Sherilee, I too had a railroad track at one house, right out the back door. We'd heard that if you got too close to the train as it went by, you could get sucked under it. Yikes.
We played Roy Rogers a lot. This wasn't so dangerous, but a little edgy as we used the front porches of some neighbors for our hideouts. Sandy was Roy, I was Dale, her sister was Pat Brady and my sis was Trigger. :) We ran away, of course, when the resident came out to see what the hell was going on...
Fun, Donna, to see the contrast between the "official" version and yours.
The one thing that I can remember that I did and shouldn't have done occurred when I was older. A friend who liked hunting and fishing decided we should go out at night with lights and try to spear fish in a creek. I didn't know this was not legal. When my Dad found out he told me that the game warden could have taken our car which I used to to drive to the place we went fishing.
This high school friend came up with a few other interesting things to do which were okay such a going smelt dipping. We went to the drag races once where I saw a guy drag racing on a motor cycle the a V8 engine installed in it and also a drag racer powered by a a jet engine from a plane.
Morning RH,
I'm with Barb on two things - 1) nifty additions to the programming! and 2) half of what I did as a kid would be considered risky/hazardous in these oh-so-careful times. We'd go down to the river and wade on slippery rocks catching crawdads (southern Ohio, not Louisiana, and I didn't know how to swim), wander in the woods and fields, ride our bikes on busy streets. And when I was a teenager, I'd walk a mile or so at night alone through a woods to get to/from an observatory. (That last admittedly was just plain dumb and dangerous.)
Alas - I think I lead a relatively danger-free childhood. Nothing too scary beyond the inevitability of scraped knees from roller skating (on my metal roller skates - which would now be considered some sort of danger, I'm sure). There was a spot under the back porch - that handily had a door - that we were supposed to avoid, but mostly because it was all dirt under there, not because it was dangerous (unless you count coming out of there filthy as dangerous). Being in the city, even if there were "wildlife" under there it was more likely to be some sort of rodent or bug than anything really scary. It did make for a good fort, though.
hi, gang--woke up early enough for a good morning to you all!
i'm struck by the little boy's fear of his parents' anger...and remembering times when i didn't tell what i had done for fear of parental anger...
in 1969 my family lived in england during my father's sabbatical...great experience living in the village manor house...in back of the house was a vacant lot on which there were huge tree trunks laying on the ground, smooth with no bark left on them....we used to run on them, despite being told to be careful...and i remember once being there with my little sister and slipping while running--i landed flat on my back with a WHUMP that knocked the wind out of me...and my first words to my sister were "don't tell mom!" i thought i might have broken my back or something, but the fear of mom's anger outweighed my concern about myself...
hmmm, guess i forgot all punctuation except ellipses; sorry!
how about some ellis or carrie rodriguez to help me move toward a state of awareness this a.m., dale?
We always liked to play in the building sites in our neighborhood after the construction workers went home for the evening. I know know that it wasn't safe and we weren't supposed to be there, but boy was it fun. It was also fun to play in the hay mow at my grandparents' farm. Once it collapsed and everyone thought that I and my cousin were buried under the hay. They were frantically trying to dig us out when we emerged out of a large storeroom/closet that we played in a lot. We didn't even know that they were looking for us.
we lived by the river and had a mark twain childhood with fires on the river banks catching carp with cigarette butts for bait and chatting with the tug boat guys who would come up with the barges. we would get a barge rope from them (one of those ropes like they use in the rope climbs in gym class) and we would take it to this great spot where with some lumber for a platform you could ride this rope and with the angle of the drop off on the hillside heading down to the river bottom you could be 100 feet in the air at the peak of the swing out and have your adrenalin pumping pretty good by the return to the platform. there was a knot for your hands and one to sit on but as you pullerd back to get the rope in cadence with your launch, you had to have it all together and if you didn't the consequences were as bad as imagined. bill huber did a perfect launch at the peak of the rope extension and did a legendary fall tha caused a limp for the rest of his life after a severe break that left one leg a bit shorter than the original situation. you would think that would have made us all realize the possibilities and in fact it did. we all got our hearts beating a bit stronger as we launched each time after that. and we did continue for the rest of the summer. it plays back in my mind like the summer of 42 movie. great times with the gang. life was great wasn't it? thanks dale. good memories
thanks for the song, dale---
another Ellis song, "How Would It Be?" which i heard first, of course, on your show was instrumental (ha ha) in helping me rally the courage to move out here to utah...
the song is all about possibility and asks at one point, "How would it be if you really created your life?"
so here i am, trying to do just that :-)
Tim, I was following along with your well-written story every step of the way. It brought me back to my childhood, swimming in the now heavily polluted river and drainage ditches around my town. I'm amazed I didn't emerge with some odd growths or strangely colored skin. (my hairline did receed rather quickly though...). You're right, life WAS great!
we do live in all-too-careful times, Connie. but are we more safe? i think not.
Dale, that barrel song was indeed scary. when my mom found out that we had been drinking from our secret "spring" the worst she could come up with was "cows have peed in that water!!" which really didn't scare us at all.
and Kay - your are amazing.
this is such fun reading this morning.
Donna, i think you will never be able to run for president with your plagiarism issue - (even when you came clean) of course you could be vice-president :-)
Elinor - You and me both!!! I ~love~ shooting decaying/crumbling buildings. Although there doesn't seem to be much of a market for it...everyone likes 'postcard' photos to hang in their home rather than gutted buildings. ~sigh~
Since my Dad was a safety guy, we were programmed from pretty early on to try not to do dangerous stuff. Ironic, really, considering that my left-handed brother (I have identical twin brothers) was able to defy several laws of physics and injure himself in the most remarkable ways. (One of the best is when he fell off the Alpine Slide in Lutsen.)
Probably the dumbest thing I ever did was to climb the face of a quarry near my high school with a buddy of mine. I'm not a very good rock climber and I very nearly fell to my death if my buddy hadn't grabbed my wrist and hauled me up.
Getting a job as security/crowd control at the DECC at age 15/16 probably wasn't the brightest thing in the world either but I have my left-handed brother to thank for that one. What'd I ever do to him? Well...besides be the consummate irritating little brother...
Greetings! I don't remember doing anything terribly adventurous or dangerous. I only remember trying to fly from the top of the stairs, like I did in my dreams. That was a big ouch!
We also went playing all day by a stream with trees a half mile from home -- gone from breakfast until supper practically. Of course, if parents allowed that today they'd get a visit from Child Protection Services real quick.
Judging by the other posts, it's a wonder we all made it through childhood intact!
Ooops! That post was supposed to be from Joanne. Now I got Jim mixed in with my name when I post. (That darn Anti-Entropy Guild stuff)
Cowboy and Indians in the haymow. Sliding in the gravel pits. Hunting rabbits while riding on car fenders Filling an old chevy with kids and driving on the river. No - I don't remember doing anything dangerous.
- Become a Member
- Member Connect Accounts
- Leadership Circle
- Sustaining Members
- Member Discounts
- Become a Sponsor
- Tax Information
- Planned Giving
- Vehicle Donation
- Donate Stock
