If you, like us, viewed the 1980s through the colored lenses of blissful youth--eyes shielded, that is, from Iran-Contra, Wall Street and Menudo--some visionary probably gathered your entire elementary school in the big kids' yard to release balloons into the air at some point. With notes reading "Hello this is Tom I like Will Clark" and "Hi my cat's name is Barf what is your's (sic)?" attached, the rising multicolored cloud caught a westerly and drifted out of sight, headed for Europe or Russia or the Nation of Africa, you were sure. More likely they landed in Modesto or Syracuse, were swept into storm drains and channeled into rivers that led to the ocean, where they suffocated that sea turtle you found dead and bloated on the beach two weeks later--you know, the one that still screams at you in your sleep and sits in your rocking chair asking judgmental questions during bad acid trips. The point is that even at a public school filled with children of reformed hippies in an environmentally prescient city like San Francisco, we went willy-nilly with the balloons. Kids in Missouri are probably still doing it. Meanwhile, in Brazil and Oregon, people are putting balloons to good use. I mean, if you must loose all that rubber on some unsuspecting sap/sea creature in a far-off land/sea, at least have the balls to put your money where your mouth is. RIP, Reverend Adelir.
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