We were all simply mad about balloons that particular February. There was little else of interest in the news. Or rather, there was too much that was tense and stressful. Our nerves went to seed. So we decided, as a group of young successful gravel pit investors, to form a band to monitor the rise and fall (pardon the pun!) of balloons in the news. We got started on this mad pursuit by the stories of reporter Ben Cohen in the Wall Street Journal. All about balloon technology. We became balloon trackers. Whenever there was a report of a large round object floating in the skies over Montana or Iowa, we jumped in our customized Humvee and barreled off to study and film it. Sometimes it turned out to be a flop -- just some old UFO spying on Earth. But other times we discovered a meandering weather balloon. These we carefully documented in scrapbooks, which we later donated to the Wichita Public Library. That is where Mr. Cohen gave his landmark lecture on "The difference between blimps and dirigibles." Our crowd attended en masse. Afterwards we held a celebratory dinner for him at the Doo-Dah Diner. Which he was unable to attend. He did send us a note, though. It read, in part: "Do not pursue balloons as a mob. They are sensitive anthropomorphic creatures. They lead very solitary lives jostling with clouds and go in terror of the random bird beak. Give them a roll of duct tape and they will follow you to the ends of the earth." That was some February, that was. The bottom fell out of our gravel pits and our parents made us get real jobs at the Post Office. We disbanded and never saw each other again. But we'll always have Wichita. And Ben Cohen.
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