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Picture it, 1983, Joplin Missouri, some random weekday near the beginning of the school year… my third grade teacher, Mrs. Robertson, wanted to conduct a little experiment with the class. We were each given a 3×5 index card and told to write a short story about ourselves on it.
Even at the ripe old age of 8 I had more to say than my fat pencil could squeeze onto a 3×5 index card. I was a ‘gifted child’ who spent about half my time in advanced reading classes away from my classmates. In the third grade, I was attending reading and science classes with the sixth graders. The next year, I would be skipped ahead, over fourth grade directly to fifth as a 9 year old. That was true social suicide, but I digress.
My postcard, to the best of my recollection read something like this:
My name is Paul. I live in Joplin, Missouri. I am eight years old. I am smart. No one likes me here. I don’t mind, I don’t like them either. Mom says they are just jealous, but I think she is making that up.
Mrs. Robertson walked around to everyone’s desk with a hole punch and some ribbon. We punched a hole in the corner of the card, tied the ribbon onto it, and went home for the night.
The next day we walked into a classroom full of bright red balloons, complete with the ribbons and our 3×5 cards tied to them. The school’s address had been stamped on to the back of the cards, and we were each told to find our balloon.
We went outside, balloons in hand, and at the count of 3 we released them into the crisp fall air.
Back in the room, Mrs. Robertson had put a map on the wall with a pushpin in Joplin. She said that when people found the postcards and wrote back she would put a pushpin in the city in which they were found.
The first couple of weeks, we would all rush into the room to see if a pushpin had been added to the map. By the third week when no pins appeared, we forgot to rush in every morning.
A month or so later, a push pin appeared on the map. It was in a city called Augusta, Georgia. My balloon had been found by an elderly man named Sam. He sent a postcard to the school:
Hi Paul, my name is Sam. I am 74 years old. I found your balloon in my garden this morning. It was stuck in my magnolia tree and I had to get a ladder out of the garage to get it. My wife died last year. She would have wanted me to write you back. You have a long life ahead of you. You shouldn’t worry about people who don’t like you. Your mom is probably right, they are just jealous. I like you.
Mine was the only balloon out of thirty that was answered that year.
I guess I like the idea that with my blog, everyday I get to send up a new little red balloon with a thought, a story, or a message on it that someone, somewhere, might read and answer. It makes the world a little smaller and a little less lonely.
