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| Balloons everywhere! |
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| Keep your eyes on the road! |
I nearly wrecked the car on Friday morning. After I dropped Steve off to manage the score
table at the Silver State Water Polo Tournament, I turned onto Virginia Street
toward campus and was greeted by Darth Vader, Smokey the Bear, a strawberry, a
ladybug, a goldfish, a globe, a train, Pencil Boy, and many teardrop rainbows
suspended way up into the sky. At this
point, I had to slam on the brakes and slightly swerve around a red pick-up
truck.
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| Tissue Paper Balloon Race Volunteers. |
I was headed to Rancho San Rafael Park to volunteer at the
Great Reno Balloon Race, so there is no reason I should have been shocked to
see a bunch of hot air balloons.
But the
sky was so blue, the shapes were so large, the balloons were so plentiful and
graceful and colorful that I completely forgot that I was in a moving
vehicle.
I pulled my focus back onto the
road and managed to drive safely to the park where I met nearly a dozen University
of Nevada swimmers.
The swimmers ran the Tissue Paper Balloon Race, an activity
for third through sixth graders. Silver
chimneys about three feet tall had been set up in the park near the real
balloons’ take-off area. In sets of two
or three, swimmers manned the chimneys and carefully heated the children’s
balloons to just the right temperature and inflation for lift-off. The children then madly chased their balloons
across the field.
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| JoJo helping third graders. |
The children had made their balloons in school from tissue
paper and, in some unfortunate cases, Duct tape. The ones who closely followed the balloon
plans distributed by the event director were hopping and pointing and shrieking
while the ones whose balloons were too heavy or holey dropped their heads and
headed to the patching station. Almost
all of the balloons eventually flew at least a little ways, and a few floated
all the way over McCarran road to the N.
Some of the balloons were four feet tall and all had names: Dragon, Rocket Ship, Easter Egg, Sleeping
Bag, Duck, Edwin (no explanation provided).
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| Katie and Lauren with a successful launch. |
The swimmers kept the enthusiasm high with energetic
count-downs: “3-2-1 LIFT OFF!” And they
didn’t catch a single balloon on fire which was impressive considering that
they had to hold the base of the balloons over a wickedly hot chimney until
just before their fingers burst into flames.
In some cases, this meant grasping melting tape while sniffing to detect
the first sign of burning tissue paper.
I don’t think anyone—children, teachers, parents, swimmers, other
volunteers (coaches)—cried the entire day, which apparently is some sort of
record and earned the swimmers “Best Volunteers Ever” praise from the event
directors.
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| Rachel and Andrea at the water polo tournament. |
While we launched balloons, a group of swimmers and divers
worked at the Silver State Water Polo Tournament at Idlewild Pool. I have no idea how Steve taught the shifts of
six student-athletes to keep the scorebook and run two clocks – one was a shot
clock and one was for something else I can’t remember—but he did teach
them. And, like the tissue balloon
launch, there were no tears even though officials were yelling and whistles were
blowing and water was splashing and the sun was blinding. Our Wolf Pack ladies stayed calm and focused
as they learned a brand new sport quickly under pressure. As tribute to their performance, we have been
invited to work the tournament again next year.
If anything, this weekend shows that we have an intelligent,
unselfish team and that Reno is far more than a gambling destination. Between the Great Reno Balloon Race, water
polo tournament, and football game, there was a tremendous sense of community
and activity…and, hopefully, not too many distracted drivers.
