All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten Read Online Free PDF

but it’s hooked on to forty-five helium-filled surplus weather balloons. Larry has a parachute on, a CB radio, a six-pack of beer, some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and a BB gun to pop some of the balloons to come down. And instead of being just a couple of hundred feet over his neighborhood, he shot up eleven thousand feet, right through the approach corridor to the Los Angeles International Airport.
    Walters is a taciturn man. When asked by the press why he did it, he said: “You can’t just sit there.” When asked if he was scared, he answered: “Wonderfully so.” When asked if he would do it again, he said: “Nope.” And asked if he was glad that he did it, he grinned from ear to ear and said: “Oh, yes.”
    The human race sits in its chair. On the one hand is the message that says there’s nothing left to do. And on the other hand, people like Larry Walters are busy tying balloons to their chairs, directed by dreams and imagination to do their thing.
    The human race sits in its chair. On the one hand is the message that the human situation is hopeless. Meanwhile, people like Larry Walters soar upward knowing anything is possible, sending back the message from eleven thousand feet: “I did it, I really did it. I’m FLYING!”
    It’s the spirit here that counts. The time may be long, the vehicle may be strange or unexpected. But if the dream is held close to the heart, and imagination is applied to what there is close at hand, everything is still possible.
    But wait! Some cynic from the edge of the crowd insists that human beings still
can’t really
fly. Not like birds, anyway. True. But somewhere in some little garage, some maniac with a gleam in his eye is scarfing vitamins and mineral supplements, and practicing flapping his arms faster and faster and faster.

 
     
     

    T HE T RUTH A BOUT L ARRY W ALTERS
    T HE G REAT B ALLOON C HAIR R IDE happened in 1982. I first wrote about it that year. And I told Larry’s story for years afterward. Truly, he was a hero to me. As it turned out, some of my facts about Larry and his ride were wrong. And there is a sequel to the story—an ending that is not an ending.
    First of all, Larry did not go up to 11,000 feet.
    Actually, it was
16,000 feet
. More than three miles up. We know that from the pilots of the TWA and Delta jetliners who found Larry in their airspace.
Sixteen thousand feet. In a lawn chair over Los Angeles.
    He did have a seat belt. But he was so excited he forgot to buckle it. The rest of his gear included an altimeter, a compass, flashlight and extra batteries, beef jerky, a California road map, and a first aid kit. This was no spur-of-the-moment event. Larry was prepared.
    His glasses fell off on ascent, and he dropped the BB gun he was going to use to pop balloons to control his altitude. He crash-landed into power lines and blacked out a neighborhood.
    Larry’s amazing feat did not go unpunished. The FAA cited him for, among other things, “operating a civil aircraft for which there is not currently in effect an airworthiness certificate” and for being in an airport space and not contacting the control tower. Fine: $1,500.
    For a while Larry was famous.
The New York Times
. The
Tonight Show
. Letterman. All that. If you want to know all the details, go to
www.markbarry.com
on the Internet. Mr. Barry is the authority on Larry Walters. He has gathered photographs of the launching site, Larry in the air, and the crash site.
    Mr. Barry has even located the actual lawn chair, which Larry had given to a neighborhood kid. How I would like to have that chair to sit in. But it’s on its way to the Smithsonian. Besides, Larry would say I should get my own chair. And get my own balloons. And fly.
    There is, as I suggested, an end to the Larry Walters story that is not an end.
    Ten years after his flight—on October 6, 1993—Larry Walters went hiking in the Angeles National Forest alone. He shot himself. In the heart. And died.
    Why? Why? We