Sam Crocker felt decades younger as he took command of the efforts to lift an old enemy’s balloon bomb back in the sky. His heart felt young and reenergized to discover such a purpose. He was the first to arrive each morning during the following week at the municipal garage, with boxes of day-old doughnuts and thermoses of hot coffee ready to quiet the stomachs and buzz the concentration of the volunteers who gathered at the flatbed to play a role in the balloon bomb’s resurrection. Sheriff Conrad and a sober Hank Reverman proved very brave, and the men succeeded in removing each bomb from the balloon without detonation while Sam Crocker guided their hands with mysterious gestures from his cane.
The town’s finest craftsmen and artists then descended on the deflated weapon of a glorious time. Frannie Rensing set up her heirloom sewing machine within the garage, and she hummed as she stitched together streamers of denim and cotton to replace the faded and torn banners of a rising, red sun first tied to that balloon’s ropes. Frannie surmounted the arthritis in her fingers and in stitching that pattern of thirteen stars and stripes onto each of her streamers rediscovered skills she thought had been lost to her. Beth Etter scavenged through her barn of printing presses until she found a paper with a texture and weight that made it a suitable replacement for the delicate material that composed the bulk of the balloon. Such paper was carefully measured and sliced into panels before given to the women of the church quilting club, who employed family fabric squares and cardboard patterns, magic markers and acrylic paints, to decorate each panel according to whim and taste. Many painted more American flags. Some illustrated barn hex signs onto the paper, symbols for good fortune and health. Others drew smiling rabbits and foxes. Of course, there were the painted crosses to observe the Lord’s sacrifice and suffering. Dan Blankenship even painted one panel with a purple and gold Indian feather so that the balloon sported the once proud token of the school district their community once operated in days before the young vanished.
The women of the quilting club carefully stitched each panel together. Their hands might not have been as nimble as they had once been, but with the assistance of magnifying glasses and experience they stitched that balloon back together with such care that not a wisp of wind would ever seep from a weakness inherent in any seam.
Colin Perry, who long ago operated a tannery and leather shop in town, believed the balloon’s ropes had become too frayed and weak to support that iron ring of bombs on any new flight. So with the help of George Fields, he crafted lighter and stronger rope fibers to hold that balloon securely together in even dark thunderstorms. John Koch learned how to weld in the Navy, and his skills combined with those of the old blacksmith John Perry to forge sturdier metal upon which could be fastened the balloon’s bombs.
The community, of course, treated nothing with more care than the two-dozen bombs carefully placed upon municipal mechanic Gary Detmer’s work counter. Sam Crocker carefully prodded and sniffed at each bomb before giving his permission to Kylie Hollenkamp – whose skills with watercolors made her the town’s resident artist for nearly four decades – to decorate each bomb casing. Kylie’s glasses had become thick and heavy, but her touch with the brush remained as supple as ever before, and everyone marveled at the brilliant shades of gold and silver, lavender and pink, blue and green, red and orange that the woman’s care applied to those bombs. Lined upon the counter at the end of Kylie’s touch, many commented how the finished product reminded them of the Easter eggs they remembered hiding in the grass a long time ago for giggling children.
The work progressed through the week, and those remaining to the town felt like they drew new breath. Many thought that perhaps their community could find the energy to survive another decade or two more after being blessed with an occasion to gather and work together. The balloon bomb the floods carried behind Dan Blankenship’s trailers seemed far more of a blessing than a curse. Who was to say what other fortune might follow that contraption of rope and paper? The world and its maker worked in very strange and unfathomable ways.
During each lunch hour, those elderly volunteers set aside their efforts and shuffled to buffet tables to taste from the plentitude brought to that garage for dining – fried chicken, steaming casseroles, crock-pots of chili, fruit salads and homemade pies. Nobody cared about cholesterol, and for a week everyone had an excuse to be a bit less disciplined with his or her blood sugar. No one worried about the addition of a few more pounds. For one week, their souls turned young as they worked to return a balloon of bomb to the wind.
And those bombs, glistening so brightly in their shades of paint, did not detonate as Sheriff Conrad and Hank Reverman again secured them to that metal ring beneath Sam Crocker’s supervision.
Sam Crocker wore his uniform again on the last day of work, when the balloon, again supple and new, stretched upon the flatbed. Their craftsmanship turned it into an American balloon, decked out in red, white and blue, a balloon decorated in stars and stripes, illustrated with the charming patterns the women of the quilting club had used for generations to add a little charm to their otherwise Spartan homes. The sight of that balloon filled Sam Crocker with pride.
“Suppose the last thing we need is the hydrogen,” Sheriff Conrad’s words distracted Sam’s concentration just before another tear surfaced in the old soldier’s eye.
“You know where we can get it?”
Sheriff Conrad nodded. “I’ll just drive down the road until I find it somewhere.”
“And we’ll launch it on Saturday morning? If the weather holds?”
“We will, Sam. I promise that. But not before we have one more parade on Friday night.”