Reflections on the Thirteenth Week of Spring – Hot Air 

    For months, I’d been hoping to get a photo of hot air balloons scattered across an azure sky during Father’s Day weekend. That’s when the Thurston Classic in Meadville schedules four balloon flights–four chances for the photo. In past years, I’d attended events at their launch site, Allegheny College’s Robertson Field. The athletic field is a great place to snap photos of individual balloons but not of the panorama I wanted. I needed a scenic, pull-off-the-highway view.

    Friday I ate an early supper, put on a sun hat, and grabbed my camera bag.

    “You can’t drive if you’re looking for balloons,” Spence said. “I’ll drive. Besides, you’re better at directions.”

    While he drove, I screwed the wide angle lens onto my camera, gazed at the sky, and told him, “Left,” “Right,” “Right,” “Yikes, don’t hit that car,” and “Pull in this parking lot.” We’d reached Allegheny Street, the highest spot on campus. Clutching the camera, I jumped out of the truck and jogged across gravel in the direction of the athletic field a quarter mile away. Power lines made the view unattractive. Even if I climbed to the roof of the truck cab, the view would still be horrible. I trudged back to Spence. “No good.”

    He turned on the engine.“Where to now?”

    “That bridge you suggested?”

    Spence steered through town and turned onto Spring Street bridge.

    “Great view,” I said. “Park on a side street. We can walk back.”

    Sweat soaked my bra.

    We walked up the narrow arching bridge on its cracked concrete sidewalk. Was this a condemned bridge waiting for repairs? Climbing, we crossed fifty feet above French Creek where a biracial couple swam and a small mutt yapped. A bus rumbled past blowing hair into my face and shaking the bridge. My stomach churned. Was a picture worth this? We reached the crest and made our way down to a great scenic view–azure skies and wire free vision in the direction of the athletic field.

    Spence leaned against the waist high concrete wall and gave me his I’m-having-fun smile.

    I gasped. “Please don’t lean on that.” I clutched my stomach with one hand and my forehead with the other. “That’s way too scary.”

    He stood up straight.

    A van passed shaking me and my frayed nerves.

    “I don’t like the bridge swaying,” I said.

    “Better to bend a little than to break,” he said.

    I stared at the crumbling edge of the sidewalk. “How old is this bridge?”

    “About your age,” he said.

    “Great. Decrepit.”

    With feet planted a foot apart for a stable stance, I glanced up and northeast to the balloon free blue sky then down and south to Lucy’s Laundry Basket. A young man rode a bicycle pulling a cart full of stuffed plastic bags and backpacks toward the laundromat. A second young man wore a large backpack and lugged grocery bags.

    “Do you think they’re camping and doing their laundry,” I said.

    Spence waved to the men. “They’re hobos, and that’s all their possessions, not just their laundry.”

    One guarded the bags while the other made two additional trips on foot with his backpack to retrieve more belongings. They stashed it under the roofed sidewalk along the side of the building.

    A stream of vehicles passed from both directions. The bridge swayed, my hair blew, but no balloons appeared.

    Maybe they were flying away from us. “What direction is the wind?”

    “There is no wind.” Spence pointed to the motionless trees. “You’re feeling the breeze from the cars.”

    No wind. Didn’t balloons need wind to fly?

    At 7:15 p.m., an hour and a half after the balloon flight was scheduled to begin, we left our scenic view and followed a mom pushing a two-seat stroller which held a baby boy in diapers and a toddler girl with bows in her blond hair. The mom lifted the girl out of the stroller so she’d get a view of French Creek.

    When we passed them, Spence told the little girl, “It’s pretty. Isn’t it? Be careful.”

    “Why did he tell me ‘careful’?” she said to her mom.

    Be careful indeed. I stood a foot away from the crumbling concrete wall to get a photo of the creek.

    The family passed me taking a photo but stopped so the mom could lift the girl to see a tabby cat resting in the shade of a tree below the bridge. “There’s a cat down there,” she said to us when we passed her again. “Do you see it?”

    “I see it,” I said. “It’s cute.”

    “I told them about the cat,” the girl told her mom.

    Back in the truck, Spence said, “People are more interesting than balloons.”

    Maybe, but I still wanted a panoramic photo of balloons in the sky. I had three more chances.

    Make that two. I didn’t get up early enough to practice yoga, eat breakfast, and drive to Meadville before the 7:00 a.m. start of the Saturday morning event. I didn’t worry. We’d catch the flight that started at 6:30 p.m. 

 

    That evening, Spence and I found a viewing spot in the parking lot of Northwest Community Pharmacy on Route 86. He stayed in the truck playing Blocks on his phone. I walked across the lot to a solid, new concrete sidewalk at the edge of a lawn with white clover and birdsfoot trefoil–no scary fifty foot drop to a creek or laundromat. Standing beside the Live Bait & Tackle machine, I had a clear view of the sky. I relaxed and watched clouds gather.

    Wind whipped the out-of-order sign taped to the coin slot of the bait machine, ruffled my hair, and swayed top branches of tall firs.

    Was it too windy for the race?

    I fetched paper from the truck to jot notes. “How’s your game?”

    Spence stared at his cell phone screen. “I’m in the fourteen thousands, but I’ve been in and out of a lot of trouble.”

    I returned to the bait machine. A red-winged black sang conk-la-reeee. A robin sang cheer-up, cheerily. Clouds covered half the sky. Could the cloud cover prevent the race?

    Tired of standing, I walked to the truck and sat on the bumper.

    Wind flapped the American flag beside the store, tossed maple branches, and rang the wind chimes on the neighbor’s deck. A groundhog scurried across the neighbor’s back yard.

    Spence joined me. ”You’d be more comfortable if I opened the tailgate for you.”

    “Sure,” I said, hopped off the bumper, then resettled on the tailgate beside Spence.

    He stared at his screen of falling blocks.

    I gazed at the sky.

    More clouds.

    Accelerating wind.

    At 7:15, I pulled my cell phone from a pocket and sent a text to our son Charlie at Wells Wood. “Can you check Thurston Classic website to see if race cancelled?”

    In case he’d already fallen asleep, since he leaves for work at 3:00 a.m. on weekdays, I sent a text to our daughter Ellen in Indiana as well. “Waiting for balloons to fly by. Could you check Thurston Classic website to see if they cancelled the race?”

    I swung my legs, enjoyed the cooling wind, and gazed at the cloudy sky.

    Charlie answered first. “It does not say.”

    “Okay. Should be at top. We’ll keep watching.”

    He typed, “Picture of crab and then ‘History of’”

    “Maybe they are still deciding. Getting overcast. What is Meadville weather forecast?”

    He answered, “Rain tomorrow, clear tonight.”

    Clear? While I texted, “Hmmmm. Thanks. Will wait a little longer,” a message came from Ellen.

    “No info. Scheduled thru 8:30 p.”

    “Thanks,” I typed. “Not sure they will fly with so many clouds.”

    “Weather is a-OK from my viewpoint.”

    Thankful for modern communication letting me chat with my short and long distant children, I added, “Enjoy.”

    At 7:45 p.m., Spence’s block game ended with 50,040 points, and I gave up on waiting for the balloons.

    Back home, our not-so-fat-cat George welcomed us at the door, Emma pulled her head out of the toy basket to merrow for food, and Charlie snored in his bedroom. I checked the Thurston Classic website. A note at the top of the page said, “The Thurston Classic Saturday evening flight has been cancelled.”

    I had one more chance for the panoramic balloon picture.

    Sunday, morning I woke at 4:30 a.m. At 5:00 I gave up trying to get back to sleep. Plenty of time to get to the last scheduled balloon flight in Meadville. I put a Father’s Day card by the coffee maker for Spence, swallowed my Fosamax, stamped “Happy Birthday” onto handmade note cards, and practiced rejuvenating yoga under clouds on the windy deck.

    Curious, I checked the Meadville Tribune website for the reason Saturday evening’s flight had been cancelled. The paper didn’t say but reported lack of wind cancelled Friday’s flight. I switched to Thurston Classic’s website and discovered, “The Sunday morning flight of the Thurston Classic has been cancelled. Happy Father’s Day! See you in 2018!”

    Relieved that I wouldn’t be making Spence dash off to Meadville yet again for an hour and a half watch of a balloon free sky on Father’s Day, I wrote “photo of hot air balloons scattered across an azure sky” on my bucket list and June 2018 calendar. Besides, what more adventure did I need this weekend after surviving scary heights, meeting interesting people, texting my children, and having two dates with my husband of forty-nine years?