My parents used to live on two acres next to a small municipal airport in rural Hubbard, Oregon. My mom used the acreage to garden and raise chickens and horses, while my dad used the airport to fly a Piper four-seater he co-owned with a neighbor. My mom also volunteered as an English tutor at the elementary school across the street, and my dad was working toward his instrument rating (flying solely by reference to instruments) so he could become a flight instructor. I would often spend the night at "the farm," where I enjoyed being around the animals and occasionally getting a ride in an airplane.
One spring morning after spending the night, I looked out the bedroom window and saw what appeared to be a hot-air balloon touching down at the elementary school. I got dressed and hurried outside to see what was up. Sure enough, it was a hot-air balloon, and it was indeed touching down at the edge of the schoolyard.
So of course I had to get a closer look. As I neared the balloon, I saw that it was emblazoned on two sides (balloons have sides?) with the Oregon Lottery logo. I didn't have a camera on me and I can't find a photo of the balloon online,* but the logo looked kind of like this:
Ironically, a couple of years earlier I had designed and produced political-style buttons that mocked the Oregon Lottery. The buttons featured a hand-drawn facsimile of the logo accompanied by the words, LET'S PLAY OREGON LOTTERY. GIVE ME A DOLLAR. WASN'T THAT FUN?
Irony aside, I decided to sidle on up to the balloon and ask its pilot what the deal was. First impressions: contrary to the hot-air balloon's image as something quiet and peaceful, the damn thing was incredibly noisy. You don't want to be standing anywhere near it with your ears uncovered when the propane burner fires. Think Wizard of Oz balloon times 100.
Between blasts of hot air, I managed to get my question in: "What are you doing here? Are you giving rides?"
To my utter astonishment, the pilot replied that he was just practicing landing and taking off, and that yes, he would be happy to give me a short ride. "You OK with just going up a little ways and then coming back down?" he asked.
Dude, whatever. I've never even been close to a hot-air balloon, let alone been offered a ride in one, however short. "Yeah, that sounds fine," I answered, trying to conceal my excitement.
"OK," he said, opening the hinged door to the basket, "climb aboard and we'll lift off."
So I climbed into the basket, gave the pilot a thumbs up, and...grabbed the edge of the basket with both hands...as if that would save me in the event of a crash landing.
Remember I mentioned how noisy the propane burner was? Now, standing right below it, I wished I had something to cover my ears other than my hands. I shifted from trying to conceal my excitement to trying to conceal my concern about going deaf. But was I going to complain about it? Nah. I WAS RIDING IN A GODDAM HOT-AIR BALLOON! My friends would be so envious! Readers of my blog would be so envious! If only blogs existed!
WHOA...we're going up! My heart started whooshing. Wait...that was the propane burner again. My heart started pounding. And then that stupid song "Up, Up, and Away" found its way into my head.
Just kidding! All I could think about was how cool it was to be standing in a wicker basket attached to a big, colorful balloon—a balloon—that was rather rapidly rising off the ground into...
The air. We were a hundred feet up in the air already. Holy shit. What if the burner runs out of propane? Or the balloon pops? That 14-foot fall I once took from a scaffolding will pale in comparison.
I had just begun imagining how many bones I would break in a 100-foot fall when the balloon slowly started descending. The pilot must've read my mind. Or my face.
Safely on the ground again, I thanked the pilot for the experience and made a hasty exit out the hinged door. Then I stood for a few minutes and watched as the balloon took off once again, rose into the sky, and gradually disappeared...maybe to land at the edge of another schoolyard and give some other naive thrill-seeker a lift?
I'm not big on gambling, so I've never really played the Oregon Lottery. But in a way I won a piece of it that day—by getting to ride in their hot-air balloon. And it didn't cost me a dollar!
*I contacted the Oregon Lottery, via a public records request form, to inquire as to whether they could share a photo of the balloon with me. The Lottery's Public Records Specialist very kindly wrote back to inform me that no one there had any recollection of such a balloon and could find no record of it. "Our best guess is that we may have hired a vendor to add our logo to a balloon for a time as we had similarly done with large boats and classic cars in the past for advertising," she concluded.
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