Author: Dick

When we were being strafed last night by the mosquito bomber I thought about a strange experience I had as a child. I have written about this in a column somewhere before though it was never widely distributed. If you are one of these hand-wringers who is ethically opposed to plagiarizing oneself, then, too bad.

I was a little cowlicked-headed small-town boy like Opie Taylor though never quite as insightful. Nonetheless, I learned one day about facing up to difficulties and then executing a course of action. It was the day the balloon fell from the sky.

My uncle was doing some kind of work on our henhouse one Sunday afternoon when we noticed what appeared to be a large weather balloon slowly descending toward relatively nearby ground. This had to be sometime in the mid-1960s and I can’t be certain that it really was a weather balloon. I say that because it was being chased by two large, twin-rotored Air Force helicopters and a rather large plane circling our little town. I don’t know if the Air Force would make such a fuss over a weather balloon. I always liked to think it was some kind of top secret experiment but it might just have been a weather balloon.

Being the town’s volunteer fire chief, my uncle told me he was going to go see where the balloon went down and asked me to come along. I am always glad that I went along that day. But I also kind of wished I had stuck around home.

We had a nice-sized pasture on our property. Kind of a large pasture for being in even a small town. My parents said that after my uncle and I left, the two helicopters landed in our pasture for a few minutes. It only took moments for townspeople to start lining the road around our pasture, my folks told me. It was if the aliens had set down and were about to invade the local Lion’s Club. To be fair, I would say most people back then had seen few if any helicopters. But it was definitely a sight to see that Sunday afternoon.

Meanwhile, my uncle and I had traced the massive balloon to a clearing for a high-voltage power line. Other officials and unofficials arrived on the scene as well. Shortly, some Air Force officers came out of the woods in their flight suits, having taken off in their choppers from our little spectacle of an air park back at the house.

The balloon rested among trees and brush for quite a ways. A box that was the balloon’s gondola hung precariously over the edge of the high-tension electric lines. This wasn’t going to be easy, the serious looks upon the military men seemed to indicate.

While the Air Force talked the situation over with the local yokels, a drunken but otherwise okay yahoo who had a missing hand on one arm quietly retrieved a shotgun from his pickup truck. He steadied the gun on top of his handless arm, which was in turn rested on the roof of the truck. Then he cut loose on the gondola/box which rapidly fell to the ground like heads in a French guillotine party.

Were this to happen today I’m sure the drunken, one-handed yahoo would probably have gone to jail. But I think everyone was too stunned to do anything that day.

Somehow, they got the remaining portion of the balloon off the highline and all those assembled including young Opie helped roll up what was left of the balloon for the Air Force.

Though that was a long time ago, I retained some very valuable lessons from that day. I learned that sometimes you’ve got to make tough decisions no matter how short-sighted, ignorant or liquor-addled they might be. I also learned that it pays to be a good shot.

Today marks the 3-month anniversary of “eight feet deep.” What was started as a means for an unemployed journalist to keep his writing skills somewhat in tact has turned into some sort of labor of love. I haven’t developed a large readership. But that’s okay with me. I have some loyal readers and others who check in from time-to-time. Mostly those reading are my friends.

I didn’t know if I would be able to stick with the blog. But so far, I have and we’ll see what happens in the future. With that said, I came across a great piece of news early this morning during yet another bout with insomnia. I found out that Tom Robbins has a new book coming out next month called “Wild Ducks Flying Backwards.” It is a combination of previously published journalistic pieces he wrote for a number of magazines along with some short stories and unpublished poetry. (Note: I can’t link directly to the page about the new book but you can get there through searching for Tom Robbins on the above link. Sorry.)

Although “Ducks” will not be a new novel, I still look forward to it because a new Robbins book is cause for celebration. He only comes out with one every few years and those books he has written offer wonderfully humorous expositions of this life and others through the eyes of someone who writes as if he invented language.

I eagerly await the new Robbins work.

It is apparent that the four blasts on the subway system and a bus in London today were minor. Although reports are sketchy the only injury reported so far may have been one of the people responsible for the detonations, the BBC says. Hopefully the British police will catch this or others involved.

What seems kind of bizarre is the lack of cell phone reports/video/photos in the wake of today’s incidents that were so evident after the attacks two weeks ago. I’m sure some perfectly good explanation exists for that. Or maybe not.

PM Tony Blair was supposed to speak almost 40 minutes ago but has yet to do so. I was going to listen to his speech but have to go out for awhile. I don’t know if anyone in the U.K. will see this blog from Beaumont, Texas, but my thoughts and best wishes are with the English people.

For the last 30 minutes I have been hearing this plane flying around. I’m used to helicopters since I’m only two blocks from St. Elizabeth hospital. But this airplane sounded unusually low and unusually noisy.

Once it appeared flying directly overhead (really low) I could see that it is a fast twin-engine job and is spraying, what I hope is for mosquitoes. We’re in deep doo if they aren’t spraying for mosquitoes.

I heard the other day that the local mosquito control district had detected several mosquitoes in their sampling around Beaumont (Texas) with West Nile Virus. The critters hadn’t been too bad lately because because it had been so hot and dry. But with the rain we’ve had they will likely be coming out in their typical Southeast Texas, saber-tooth fashion. I’ve been forgetting to put on the DEET the last two mornings I’ve gone for a walk. I think I will remember tomorrow morning.

I really like a good thunderstorm. But I don’t particularly like one at 4 o’clock in the morning. Nature was in the kitchen this morning banging her pots and pans which caused me to enter a state of levitation as well as wakefulness. I never really did get back to sleep after that. But I don’t want to bore you with my insomnia.

As I write it is thundering outside. We are on the very outer fringe of Hurricane Emily, according to the National Weather Service office in Lake Charles, La. And I don’t mind it at all because it has hidden Old Sol and made temperatures just a little more bearable here.

Thunderstorms can be downright frightening but they also are a magical piece of nature’s handiwork. It is just uncanny the amount of energy involved in putting on a little light-and-thunder exhibit. Just how much energy, I don’t know for sure. I’ve seen different figures like 10 times the energy of the first atomic bomb. Regardless, T-storms are bursting with juice and can cause some serious clam bakes.

On this day full of nature’s energy I leave you with a little weather/airline humor:

After the airline pilot had managed to land his plane — albeit bumpily — following a descent through exceptionally heavy weather, he came out of the flight deck to bid his passengers farewell as they gratefully entered the jetway on their way back to terra firma.

The most memorable comment he received was from a little old lady who asked him politely whether he would please satisfy her curiosity on just one point: “Did we land, or were we shot down?”