Ballooning* (*A lesson in Humility)

Once, on my twelfth or thirteenth birthday I got one of the best presents I've ever received. For a long time I had expected something extraordinary. The knowledge of Kings? A visit from the Gods? Perhaps my coming of age would activate latent superpowers... no matter. Because birthdays, at that age, are always good. And this one was no different. It was one for the ages.

There wasn't a large group of kids like -my favorite visit to the movies -when I got my Mom to take us and The Sawyers to see Friday the 13th V. And there weren't a clown or a pink Gorilla like: never. As I recall it was just me by my lonesome, playing out behind our house, waiting for some cake. (Vanilla w/ vanilla. Oh, I can gobble a whole chocolate cake. Alone. With all of the lights out. But V and V is my favorite.)

So there I am playing my own game. Doing my own thing. Abiding. When my aunt arrives. "Christa-fa! Look what I braught YA!" And trailing behind, I'm sure were the rest of the Walls -my cousins- but all that I saw was the biggest, hugest, most large, blue balloon in the History of Balloons. So Big, in fact, that I was scared to hold it as I thought I would leave my deck. Come to think of it I don't know why that would be a fear for me. Her family carried it onto the deck and somehow we tethered it to a chair. Just after trying and failing to tie it down to a weighted HP Hood milk crate. I'm surprised that the chair didn't pull "a Danny." I was convinced that that balloon would pull my house into the sky, if the knot were tied right. It was Huge. You wouldn't believe me if I told ya.

There I was. Staring, eyes wide, mouth agape, and wondering how best to utilize this balloon. (See: above.) When the perfect thought hit me like an intercontinental thought missile launched from another brain. A thought so good it couldn't have come from my own head and yet there it was. "I'll go and get my friends." It was still early and I knew exactly where they'd be.

Without warning I jumped onto my huffy and sped off. Leaving tiny rubber tire marks all the way up Sullivan street. I flew two blocks and hung a right on Russell. The instant I turned the corner a kickball game came into view. The yelling intensified as a play reached it's peak. Kids were screaming "RUN, RUN... RUN!" and "THROW IT. GET HIM."

Teeth gritted, head bowed low, and bike swaying side to side I peddled as hard as possible to reach the game with a quickness. Time stood still. The game seemed forever out of my reach, as it remains to this day. I yelled, "Guys, you're never gonna believe this..." A head turned, then another, and another... everyone looked at me. One kid, Michael Lynch, happened to be tying his shoe as I yelled. When he looked up he must've had a greater field of vision than the rest of us because he pointed. Everyone else was facing my direction. And from my crouched position, on my bike -looking straight ahead at the neighborhood kids- I was the first to see his finger touch the sky.

Not yet at a complete stop, I followed Michaels index finger. My head turning back and up. With my mouth wide open I was hoping for a Wonkavator or a UFO or Cuckoo Man from "The Mighty Heroes." What I got instead was a GIANT. BLUE. BALLOON... the rest of the kids followed my gaze and started to let out exclamations, "LOOK at the size of that balloon... WHOA... WOW... HOLY SHIT." I bellowed, "My Balloon!" Letting it out as if the Balloon were a Blue Monster I had created, in my room, after years of studying alchemy and dark sciences forgotten for centuries.


I tried to tell them about my balloon and how it had been purchased for my birthday. How it was the reason I came to be standing in-front of them. They didn't believe me. After a little pleading that went nowhere they began to return to their game, not caring about the ownership of a balloon. Little or no sympathy. "Well, there it goes," was all that was said. "Happy Birthday." What else could they say? Other than, "that sucks man." I was being ridiculous in the first place. I came to brag and left a liar.

A good lesson to start my year: Losing a Balloon to the sky. That was my first real big dose of humility. And I needed it. Sooner or later (I like to think it was sooner) I came to a realization that I can't make a big deal over stuff like that. It's in a balloon's nature to fly. Sometimes, I'd have to let 'em go.

Every year on June 2nd I release a Big Blue Balloon into the atmosphere. At some point it'll pop and send my dreams into outer space. Eventually, those dreams'll come back for me in a rocketship.
-Doogie Howser M.D.