Subject: Lawn Chairs
Larry Walters is among the relatively few who have actually turned their dreams
into reality. His story is true, and dumb . . .
Larry was a truck driver, but his lifelong dream was to fly. When he graduated
from high school, he joined the Air Force in hopes of becoming a pilot.
Unfortunately, poor eyesight disqualified him. So when he finally left the
service, he had to satisfy himself with watching others fly the fighter jets
that criss-crossed the skies over his backyard. As he sat there in his lawn
chair, he dreamed about the magic of flying.
Then one day, Larry had an idea. He went down to the local Army-Navy surplus
store and bought forty-five weather balloons, and several tanks of helium.
These were not your brightly colored party balloons, these were heavy-duty
spheres measuring more than four feet across when fully inflated. Back in his
yard, Larry used straps to attach the balloons to his lawn chair, the kind you
might have in your backyard. He anchored the chair to the bumper of his jeep,
and inflated the balloons with helium. Then he packed a few sandwiches and
drinks, and a loaded BB gun, figuring he could pop a few balloons when it was
time to return to earth. His preparations complete, Larry sat in his chair and
cut the anchoring cord. His plan was to lazily float into the sky, and
eventually back to terra firma. But things didn't quite work out that way.
When Larry cut the cord, he didn't float lazily up; he shot up as if fired from
a cannon! Nor did he go up a couple hundred feet. He climbed and climbed
until he finally leveled off at eleven thousand feet! At that height, he could
hardly risk deflating any of the balloons, lest he unbalance the load and
really experience flying. So he stayed up there, sailing around for fourteen
hours, totally at a loss about how to get down.
Eventually, Larry drifted into the approach corridor for Los Angeles
International Airport. A Pan Am pilot radioed the tower about passing a guy in
a lawn chair at eleven thousand feet, with a gun in his lap . . . Now there's a
conversation I would have given anything to have heard! LAX is right on the
ocean, and you may know that at nightfall, the winds on the coast begin to
change. So, as dusk fell, Larry began drifting out to sea. At that point, the
Navy dispatched a helicopter to rescue him, but the rescue team had a hard time
getting to him because the draft from their propeller kept pushing his
home-made contraption farther and farther away.
Eventually, they were able to hover above him and drop a rescue line, with
which they gradually hauled him back to safety. As soon as Larry hit the
ground, he was arrested. But as he was led away in handcuffs, a television
reporter called out, "Sir, why'd you do it?" Larry stopped, eyed the man, then
replied nonchalantly, "A man can't just sit around!"