At Retreat

Birthday Thank You

- August 15, 2009

If you do not know, when I was five years old my mother had to work on my birthday. She was a single parent at the time, and she was very sad to have to work. But we talked about it, and she arranged to have a wonderful all-day party for me, sponsored by some of her closest girlfriends of the time. We had a lovely time, and about an hour or so before my mother was supposed to be home, I looked out the window and a couple of blocks away there was a large hot air balloon going up and down, up and down, up and down. So we agreed to go check it out. It turned out they were giving away free hot air balloon rides. We were all very excited and got in line. We waited in line for about 20 minutes, all the while I was watching this giant flame burst forth and heat the air in the balloon. Now, I come from a whole family of firefighters. My mother, uncle and grandfather were all firefighters at the time. And as I watched that balloon go up and down, I started to suspect that it was not the safest ...