My great uncle, in the Union Army, happened to be stationed in Washington D.C., and the army was presenting these new hot air balloons to President Lincoln at the White House. He was absolutely fascinated by this presentation. After he got home from the Civil War, he got together with his brothers and they got some sheets or whatever they used then, and built a balloon. Everyone loved it. They started going to carnivals and fairs and those sorts of things." It's the third time Eddie Allen Jr., age 88 tells us the story, but it's still great. The Allen family has been free-falling from hot air balloons since 1866, 135 years before the first episode of Fear Factor.
Eddie, who graduated from Penn, spent his high school summers touring Depression-era America with his two sisters. Each tethered to a trapeze, the Allen act would rise in their hot air balloon, drop one by one from the sky, and parachute back to safety to the delight of watching crowds. In the summer of '36, Mrs. Allen wasn't worried about her daredevil darlings - they were professionals. Instead, she worried about safeguarding their $1,100 (the equivalent of $80,000 today) in tour profits while most families were saving pennies for bread.
But even Superman (as Eddie was called in the Army) had to pass the torch. Eddie's son David is now the patriarch of the Allen dynasty, and our pilot. Today, Eddie's just along for the ride with us and four other customers on our Magical Mystery Flights tour.
Our balloon is called the Dream Maker. Like all hot air balloons, it has two parts: the envelope and the basket. The Technicolor, fire-retardant balloon envelope is both a mouthful and a mammoth, weighing in at 400 lbs of fabric. When inflated, it expands 70 feet high and 70 feet wide. The weaved, wicker-like basket is similar to those used since the late 1700s when manned balloons were first in vogue.
As David fires up the burners, producing an astounding display of six-foot high flames, Eddie recalls the days when people burned wood instead of propane to produce the intense heat required for ascension.
As we're about to take off, David is wide-eyed, "The most important thing for you to remember is to." David intentionally trails off as he fires up the propane so we are unable to hear him complete his sentence. "Don't forget that!" he jokes.
As we rise, the basket gets stuck on David's RV parked 50 feet from our liftoff sight. Surprisingly, the balloon's separation anxiety from the ground fails to make us nervous. Suspending reality seems logical while floating up with the rising sun. David tugs for 30 seconds, and we blast off like we're in the Wonkavator.
Chester County and the surrounding areas lay like a blanket below us. In the distance, under the morning sun from the East, the Philadelphia skyline emerges like the Land of Oz. But billows of white smoke rise in the north from the twin plumes of Exelon's Limerick Nuclear Power Plant. Reality sets in again, if only for a moment.
The winter months don't bring enough interested parties to provide David with a year-round income. So he works as a fuel truck driver in the cold winter months - a job he landed after taking the local Sunoco plant's director of Human Resources up in his balloon. As we hover 300 feet over David's Sunoco fuel plant, he hollers down, "See you in three weeks!" A voice responds from below, "Are you coming to work today?" David chuckles. "Slacker!" his buddy calls up as we float on.
As a school approaches in the distance, David makes a bold statement: "I'm going to take you to the one place where you can see the entire United States from the air." Painted on the schoolyard's blacktop is a map of the United States, presumably to teach youngsters about geography. The door of the school building opens and little hands wave spastically in the air. And like World Series (and Civil War) champions Yanks, we wave back.
As the name of David's company suggests, ballooning is a sport of mysteries. Because of nuances in wind currents, the landing spot is completely unknown at take off. David says that he rarely lands in the same place twice, and that private property (so long as the land isn't being farmed) often serves as his spontaneous landing zones. Of the over 2,500 flights that David has made during his time in the balloon business, there have been exactly 22 grumpy people who yelled at him for landing on their property.
David tells us that there have been 72 engagements and 3 weddings in his flying machine. "How many funerals?" we ask facetiously. For a second David becomes somber and mentions that he spread his own mother's ashes from the balloon. A silence ensues at 3,500 feet. There is an enchanted intimacy and tacit companionship that is born among David and his awed passengers.
Every sport has its rituals. Balloonists drink a bottle of champagne at the end of every flight - no exceptions. If the balloonist lands on your property, he will give you a bottle as a gesture of thanks. A breakfast of champagne, cheese and crackers greets us back on earth and gently wakes us up - every dream must come to an end.
