7-18-25

Have you ever done something and then wished you could take it back?.....I’m not

talking about the thing you knew was wrong and shouldn’t have ever done it….I’m

not talking about the insult, or the cheat, or the slip-up, the one that you already

knew was a bad idea but did it anyway…..I’m talking about that thing that seemed

really cool, really interesting, really a good idea….at least a good idea at the

time….that thing that you felt you had thought through and then realized later that

maybe you didn’t think it through enough…..Congress just did that….Congress

just looked at something that had been done decades ago that had gotten out of

hand when the good idea began to go wrong…..it reminds me of a guy they called

“Lawnchair Larry”…..Lawnchair Larry, the epitome of the guy who had what he

thought was a really good idea that didn’t really turn out like he had

planned…..and Lawnchair Larry is metaphor for last night’s action in DC…..

So I’m about to tell you the craziest story of a time when someone had this itch

they just had to scratch….the guys name was Larry Walters and he lived in San

Pedro, California…..Apparently, when Larry was 13 he had this cool idea of using

weather balloons to fly…..he tried to join the air force to be a pilot but was rejected

because of his eyesight…..but he had this itch to fly and the weather ballon idea

had never really left his mind…..so in 1982 Larry Walters decided to take

action….Larry and his girlfriend purchase 45 eight foot weather balloons from a

military surplus store and got some helium tanks from a party store…..and then he

went down to Sears and bought a nice folding Lawnchair……

On July 2, 1982, Walters attached 42 of the balloons to his lawn chair which he

had rigged to a platform with gallon jugs of water strung around it for ballast….he

filled all 42 of them with helium, put on a parachute, and strapped himself into the

chair in the backyard of his mothers house in San Pedro…… He also took a pellet

gun, a CB radio, some sandwiches, 2 liters of Coca-Cola, a pack of beer and a

camera….sounds legit so far right?.....things started going off kilter right away

when the cord that tethered his lawn chair broke prematurely…..Larry had

apparently planned to notify the authorities before taking off but when the anchor

line broke he was off to the races…..His plan was to float over the neighborhood at

maybe 100 feet or so…..not sure what the parachute was for then…..but 42 8-foot

weather balloons filled with helium can do some flying…..Larry Walters's lawn

chair rose rapidly to a height of about 16,000 feet!.....As he flew along he was

spotted by several commercial airliners as he drifted into commercial airspace…..

He slowly drifted out over Long Beach and crossed the primary approach corridor

of Long Beach Airport which caused the airport to then be shut

down…..throughout the whole thing he was talking to folks on the ground with his

CB radio…..and he was pretty candid….at one point

REACT: What information do you wish me to tell [the airport] at this time as to

your location and your difficulty?

Larry: Ah, the difficulty is, ah, this was an unauthorized balloon launch, and, uh, I

know I'm in a federal airspace, and, uh, I'm sure my ground crew has alerted the

proper authority. But, uh, just call them and tell them I'm okay.

FYI, the “ground crew” was his girlfriend and his Mom…..After about 45 minutes

in the sky he decided it was probably a good idea to get down….so he began

executing his landing plan…..which involved popping the balloons…yes, you

heard me….Walters shot several balloons with a pellet gun, taking care not to

unbalance the load…..aaaannnnddd then he then accidentally dropped his pellet

gun overboard…..and then he realized that he was in fact descending but at a aster

rate than he expected!....so he began dumping water from his ballast jugs…..He

descended slowly enough but by then he had floated well into a populated area

with no means of control…..the balloons' dangling cables became caught in a

power line in Long Beach…..and of course, the power line broke, causing a

blackout in the area…... He landed unharmed…..sort of, after having to climb

down from the power lines, whereupon he was immediately arrested…..

Local authorities weren’t sure what to charge him with…..this was a new one…..

One of them said, "We know he broke some part of the Federal Aviation Act, and

as soon as we decide which part it is, some type of charge will be filed. If he had a

pilot's license, we'd suspend that, but he doesn't."….Larry Walters became known

as Lawnchair Larry and had a brief fleeting fame, even made it on the David

Letterman Show…..his lawnchair is now in the Smithsonian Museum believe it or

not…..at some point he was asked about it all…..but his answer didn’t sound like

he was ready to fly again….it sounded more like he wished he could take it all

back…..speaking to the press Lawnchair Larry said once, “It was something I had

to do. I had this dream for twenty years, and if I hadn't done it, I think I would

have ended up in the funny farm.” He also said: “Since I was 13 years old, I've

dreamed of going up into the clear blue sky in a weather balloon […] By the grace

of God, I fulfilled my dream. But I wouldn't do this again for anything.”

Okay, classic example of someone who thought that they had thought something

through and then wished later they could take it all back….I’d love to know more

about what was going through his mind at 16,000 feet for nearly an hour…..but

I’m pretty sure there were plenty of self-imposed questions about his own

sanity…..and that my friends is where we are today with Congress…..

Last night members of Congress decided that they were ready to take something

back….something that started out in a different time with a different mode and

wound up morphing into something that no one had ever planned…last night the

Republican members of Congress decided it was finally time to pop the balloons

and defund the corporation for public broadcasting…..yep, the much vaunted home

of Sesame Street, Antiques Roadshow and All Things Considered…..over a billion

dollars in taxpayer money each year…..was just defunded….Congress finally

looked at the Frankenstein monster they had created decades before and decided

that what seemed like a good idea back at the time had outlived its purpose….it

was time to take it all back….

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting was created on November 7, 1967, when

U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967…..

it’s original chief arm was the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)….bring TV

shows to public television…… On February 26, 1970, the CPB formed National

Public Radio (NPR), a network of public-radio stations that began operating the

following year. 

This was back at a time when color TV was still new….cable TV was unheard

of…..there were really only 3 major networks that aired for roughly 12 hours per

day and signed off at night….there was no educational programming….there was

nothing that a teacher could show in a classroom….there was no means of ensuring

that patriotic content, or lessons on civics, or how to read and write and learn

numbers could be broadcast…..it was also a means by which the government could

make emergencies known quickly….it had a mission and it took to the airwaves on

both TV and radio for nearly 60 years and its budget grew and grew and grew….it

was like watching a balloon chair that went way higher than anyone ever

thought…..

The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 requires the CPB to operate with a "strict

adherence to objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a

controversial nature". [13]  It also requires it to regularly review national

programming for objectivity and balance, and to report on "its efforts to address

concerns about objectivity and balance"……yeah, that didn’t really happen….over

time the corporation for public broadcasting, with PBS on TV, and NPR on radio,

lost its way….it became the harbinger of cultural shifts….to say that it became

woke might be an understatement of the year…..NPR famously announced that

discussion of the Hunter Biden laptop was a pure distraction….when it came to

illegal immigration it ran a story about “gay asylum seekers” being so

important…..in 2020 it ran a piece titled “fat phobia and its racist past and present”

– that’s a good one……transgender truckers got their own story too, because God

knows theres a whole of tranny’s trucking the wheels of commerce in

America…..they’ve encourage eating bugs instead of meat, introduced gay

characters on Sesame Street, and even opined that they may have been gay

dinosaurs, because everyone knows that’s real, right?.....

We’ve been paying for this….with our tax dollars….and it was time to take it all

back….what started out as a really good idea quickly went awry…..Lawnchair

Larry and NPR…..go figure…..but yes, there are times when you can actually face

regret and take it all back….and that’s exactly what Congress finally did last night

by defunding the corporation for public broadcasting…..

And that’s a wrap for the Rightside Way!