Lawn Chair Pilot

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I want to begin though with a story that has to do with a man who felt like he had a unique idea about he was frustrated with his past and frustrated with what was going on in his life and he wanted to try something new to let go. This is a true story but you're not going to believe it. The man's name is Larry Walters. He lives in LA I think to this day. This happened about probably 15 years ago I think.

I was living in Los Angeles at the time. Larry Walters was a frustrated pilot. In fact he never really got his pilot's license. He knew how to fly but he couldn't get his license because he was not able to pass the eye exam. He couldn't see well enough.

So one day Larry got this great idea. He went out and he bought 40 helium balloons and he attached these balloons to a lawn chair and he staked the lawn chair into the ground in his backyard. His idea was he was going to blow these helium balloons up and then what he was going to do is sit in the lawn chair with a BB gun. He was going to release the lawn chair and as he would float up into the air he would control his ascent and descent with the BB gun. If you go too high he would shoot a balloon and he would come back down.

I guess when you want to let go of the past it's maybe a fun thing to do. I don't know. Anyway so he releases the lawn chair. He's sitting in the lawn chair with his BB gun. He releases it.

Well Larry grossly underestimated the power of these 40 helium balloons. And before he knew it he went boom. I mean he was up. He was at 13,000 feet floating on the skyline of Los Angeles. Larry accidentally the winds come and he floats into the landing pattern for Los Angeles International Airport.

So here comes this TWA pilot now on approach and he radios the tower. They've got this recorded somewhere. They've got the tower that's got this recording and he radios the tower. He says you guys aren't going to believe this. I said what?

He says there's a guy up here at 13,000 feet in a chair with a gun. They said what? He said yeah. And so they got these helicopters up there and they got these little whirly birds up above them. They finally got the air going and they get the guy back down.

He's frozen in his chair. They get him down on the ground. And I saw it on the news that night. They handcuffed this guy and they're taking him away. And the police are talking to him.

They said were you scared? He says yes. He says well would you ever do that again? He says no. They said well whatever possessed you to do that in the first place.

And listen to what the guy said. He says sometimes you can't just sit around. Now I'm not suggesting that that's the way you go about letting go of your past, but Larry Walters had a strange way of doing that.