Up in a balloon, boys

✍ Scribed by Jennings W.N.

• Book ID: 104131528
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1938
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 743 KB
• Volume: 225
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0016-0032
• DOI: 10.1016/s0016-0032(38)90617-9

✦ Synopsis

The home of my lifelong friend, "Professor" Samuel A . King, was reminiscent of many a balloon ascension . A hole in the porch roof was patched with a piece of fabric from the old "Excelsior" aerostat . The overturned basket of the ancient "Uncle Sam" made an excellent chicken coop . Mrs. King was hanging up clothes on a line that once was a dragrope ; while her grand-daughter used a part of the same material for a swing, and her brother trundled a hoop salvaged from the "Eagle Eyrie" balloon .

I found the " King of the air" in high good humor, as usual ; his six foot three stretched out in a hammock made from the net of an old sky-sailer, his eye as blue and his whiskers as white as the sky and clouds he had so often sailed in .

At King's invitation I took a seat in a porch chair (cushioned with ballast bags), and soon we were soaring skyward, in retrospect, recalling, with many a "Do-you-rememberwhen?", incidents of our many joint skylarks .

"That time you almost lost your new camera?" chuckled the Professor .

Upon the initial flight of the eight passenger "Ben Franklin" balloon, I had undertaken to photograph, with my new aero-camera a christening group, at the height of a mile, and finding I could not include all the members of the party within the angle of the lens, I suggested to my friend, Arthur Atherholt, that while I sat on the edge of the oval basket and leaned far back, he should sit on my feet. This human cantilever worked to perfection, but when I pulled myself back to normal, I noticed that Atherholt's face was white as chalk, and his marble brow was beaded with sweat . "What's the matter, Arthur?" I asked . 549 'Ben Franklin" eight passenger balloon. Constructed by Samuel A . King for the Ben Franklin Balloon Association of Philadelphia, the first aeronautical Society in America .