Love is waiting there in my beautiful balloon

Our twelve-year-old son Lovett had a meltdown on me this afternoon in the backyard.

We were doing some chores around the house, it being a warm, sunny December Saturday. I was washing windows, my wife was potting plants, and our four-year-old daughter Dora had some of her teddy bears in a circle in the grass, playing doctor or mama or zookeeper or something. Since no video game controllers or DVD players were within reach, Lovett was unproductively doing "outside" time until his sentence was served.

He got permission from the warden (his mother) to go inside for something to drink. Returning empty-handed, he spouted off, "Can we please go to the grocery store?" which is twelvespeak for "There is nothing to drink in there." The warden suggested he fix himself a glass of water, to which he replied, "I was looking for something a little more refreshing."

"You don't think water is refreshing?" I asked.

"No," he replied, dumbstruck at my preposterousness.

So I did what any other self-respecting father would do while trying to prove a point. I squirted him with the garden hose.

I didn't soak him, just a splash below his left ribcage. I thought it was funny. He did not. He spent the next five minutes trying to retaliate with both a soccer ball and a half-empty can of Fresca I foolishly left more than arm's distance away.

The warden, insulted at the disrespect directed toward her soulmate and hunter-gatherer, sentenced him to twelve-year-old timeout: twenty minutes in a lawn chair to comtemplate the definition of paternal respect.

Now, being a somewhat intelligent, committed teammate in this parenting thing, I didn't appeal the sentence even though I thought it a little overkill. I was humored by my son's feeble attempts at retaliation, and I also realized that I had probably embarassed him in front of his mother. I had tried to be funny and, in his eyes, I failed. Unappreciated humor is no humor at all, and he didn't appreciate the big wet spot on his t-shirt, but I let him serve his time and went on about my business.

I returned to the scene of his incarceration to find warden and inmate in the midst of the post-sentence hearing where the inmate would normally receive his $10 bill and a bus ticket out of town. Lovett, set free, stalked around to the front yard to get away from the rest of us. I could tell he was still upset and I speculated about his next course of action. Would he sit on the front porch and sulk? Would he sneak into the house and cut all my undershorts to ribbons? Would he get on his bike and pedal furiously away, only to be chased by a dog into traffic and be hit by a car? Would he try to hitchhike to a faraway relative's house?

Before I could weigh all his options, he came around the corner of the house pushing my lawnmower. And then it hit me.

I had embarrassed him. I had insulted his "manhood," emasculating him in front of his mother and little sister, who had reacted to his backyard bath with unbridled mirth. And he intended to reclaim his manhood - by mowing the lawn.

So I let him. He didn't do it as well as I would have. In fact, his wavy patterns and underlapped passes made me cringe. But I stayed my tongue, offering him suggestive pointers and encouraging his efforts. I treated him with respect. I spoke to him as an "equal." I let him earn back his masculinity.

And then we heard it.

Now, normally you can't hear much above the four-stroke roar of a lawnmower, but I have one of those old-fashioned, combustionless, ozone-friendly reel mowers which allows me to hear the birds singing as I tonsure my bermudagrass. So the FWHOOSH took us by surprise.

It sounded like a rocket motor being tested. I dismissed it as absurd, since I'm unaware of any nearby rocket-motor testing facilities, until I heard it again. And again. And again. Each time louder than before. I turned FWHOOSH-ward to see a most colorful hot air balloon climbing above the treeline. And it was heading right toward us.

We ran to the front yard for a streetside view unobstructed by neighboring houses. Many of our neighbors up the street were out on the sidewalk gazing into the sky. The balloon continued its course toward our house accompanied by the FWHOOSH of the burner and waves from the four passengers in the gondola.

It was a beautiful balloon, multicolored squares floating above a glistening varnished basket, operated by Air Alabama. As it passed our house it appeared to slip rapidly below the horizon until we noticed that it stopped sinking behind the roofline of the houses down the street. Lovett hopped on his bike and raced toward it, and Dora did the same (as much racing as can be done on training wheels) with me in hot foot-pursuit.

The balloon had landed in a vacant lot behind some under-construction houses in another sector of our subdivision. A crowd had gathered in the yards surrounding the lot and the street filled with cars that had followed the balloon to its resting place. The pilot had already dismounted the gondola and was squeezing the air out of the balloon with the help of the passengers. He patiently answered everyone's questions and shared balloon facts with us as he disassembled his craft and phoned his chase vehicle with directions to the pickup point.

Did you know that balloon pilots have no control over where their balloons go? They are totally at the mercy of the wind. Did you know that balloon pilots are constantly looking for safe places to touch down? Did you know that liquid propane, forced through the burner unlit, cools the burner so that it is safe to handle? Did you know that a balloon basket is just that, a basket? Did you know that a hot air balloon can be folded up and packed into a bag that is about the size of a washing machine? Before today, I didn't, but I found all this out while helping the pilot, passengers, and some neighbors pack the balloon and load it and the gondola into the chaser's pickup truck.

After we returned home, I resumed washing windows and Lovett returned to his X-Box. I walked into his room to wash the inside of his windows and after I'd made a few swipes, he, gazing at the video monitor, said, "That was neat."

"Yes, it was," I replied.

And it was.