July 17, 2025 • 28 mins
Ever wondered what would happen if you tied 45 giant weather balloons to a lawn chair? In 1982, truck driver Larry Walters answered this question with an adventure that transformed him from an ordinary man with a dream into an aviation legend.
After being denied his childhood ambition of becoming an Air Force pilot due to poor eyesight, Larry took matters into his own hands. Armed with a Sears aluminum lawn chair (which he named "Inspiration One"), weather balloons acquired through forged military requisition forms, a BB gun, and a six-pack of beer, Larry cut the anchor cord expecting a gentle ascent to 30 feet. What followed was anything but gentle.
Instead of floating lazily above his neighborhood, Larry rocketed to 16,000 feet, drifting into controlled airspace near Los Angeles International Airport. Commercial pilots radioed the control tower about "a man in a lawn chair floating at 16,000 feet holding a pistol." When he accidentally dropped his BB gun – his only means of popping balloons to descend – Larry found himself truly at the mercy of the winds.
The journey ended with Larry tangled in power lines, causing a neighborhood blackout before he climbed down unharmed into the waiting arms of bewildered police officers. When reporters asked why he'd attempted such a dangerous stunt, his deadpan reply became iconic: "A man can't just sit around."
Though the FAA fined him $1,500, Larry's lawn chair eventually found its way into the Smithsonian, and his flight inspired an extreme sport called "cluster ballooning." His story reminds us that sometimes the most extraordinary adventures come not from elaborate planning but from simple, determined dreams and the courage to look ridiculous in pursuit of them.
What wild dream have you been putting off? Maybe Larry's story is the sign you've been waiting for to take that leap of faith – though perhaps with better safety precautions than a BB gun and a six-pack.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Oh, hey there.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Oh, hey there.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
How's it going today, Kate?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I'm good, this is History.
Buffoons, buffoons.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
And this is the origin of weird.
Yes, and I am Kate and I amgood, this is History, buffoons,
buffoons.
And this is the origin of weird.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yes, and I am Kate.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
And I am Bradley.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
And I'm a little under the weather.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Yeah, you know, aren't we all, because we live
on planet Earth.
I mean technically the weatheris Always above us, always above
us, yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Unless you're raining snow and then it's below us
sometimes.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
All right, let's move on.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yeah, getting a little metaphysical A little
deep.
Is that metaphysical?
That's not the right word, isit?
Speaker 1 (00:57):
That is definitely a word.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
It is.
I don't think it's the rightcontext.
It's the correct one.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
I am not what you would call a smart man, but I do
know what love is.
Smrt, smrt.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Okay, so this Origin of Weird is this kind of a fun
one?
Speaker 1 (01:19):
You had said that, because I had asked if you were
ready for it and you said, yeah,it's kind of fun.
So I'm interested to hear whatkind of fun we can have here on
the Origin of Weird.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
We're going to talk about Lawn Cherry, larry.
Lawn Cherry, lawn Chair, larry.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
I can see how you did Cherry, because his name is
Larry.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Lawn Chair Larry.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Lawn Cherry Larry.
Okay, lawn Chair Larry.
Yes, where is he from?
So his name is Larry Walwalters I would have never got
guess his first name he is acalifornia truck driver
california okay, but ever sincehe was a little boy, he actually
(01:59):
wanted to fly.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Oh yeah, so he grew some wings.
No, I'm kidding so he bought akite so um he became a us air
force pilot what year are wetalking about?
Um, we're kind of in the 80sokay, yeah our.
The year that we're going totalk about is 1982.
Oh, there you go um, but hewanted to become an air force
(02:23):
pilot, but he had pretty pooreyesight.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah.
So it doesn't really work Wellyou know back then, because
obviously there's lots ofadvancements with Blasic and all
that today, which I do believeI think we might have even
talked about they allow now.
I believe Probably Because Ithink we talked about that in
the astronaut one, oh, maybe, Ibelieve like it doesn't matter I
(02:48):
don't know you were there was Ithough but no I think, uh, I
think they do allow certain uhlasik surgeries to make it so
you can go in the air force yeahbut back in 1982 not so much.
You had to have 2020 vision.
Yeah, not in fucking not somuch you had to have 20-20
vision, not in fucking hindsighteither.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
So instead he went into the Army.
He went into the Vietnam War,but by 1982, he was still in
love with being up in the air.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Did he jump a lot?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
He did want to take to the skies, so you know what
he did.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Built his own plane.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
He bought a Sears brand.
You remember good old Sears.
The softer side of Sears.
In fact, Softer side of Sears.
Yeah, that was the jingleSofter side of Sears.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Oh, I don't remember that.
Oh yeah, the brand name or thatwas the jingle Softer side of
Sears?
Oh, I don't remember that.
Oh yeah, Wow, okay yeah, softerside of Sears.
I used to go to Sears a lotwith my dad back in the day.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Because Sears wasn't.
Sears more about likeappliances and stuff and then
they started like doing clothesand that's why they had the
softer side of Sears.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Oh, I guess I remember is they always had
everything, but back in the dayyou could buy a house from them.
Huh, that's like all those boxcookie cutter houses you could
buy a house from Sears and theywould ship all the stuff you
need and plop it on your land.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Interesting, didn't know that yeah so.
I mean, that's what a lot ofthose old like that's why a lot
of houses look the same?
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Yeah, because it was relatively inexpensive, but, you
know, affordable for a lot morepeople kind of.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Thing.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
So unless I'm thinking of the wrong brand, but
I'm pretty sure it was Sears-Well, he did buy a Sears lawn
chair.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
You know those like aluminum ones.
Oh yeah, and balloons.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Oh, and so he's like let's take to the sky.
With balloons, balloons take tothe sky with balloons and
cherries.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
I mean, he said, if he didn't pursue this dream, he
was gonna end up in the funnyfarm well, I feel like the way
he's going about it should havewent there anyways so in mid
1982, walters and his girlfriendat the time, carol van deusen,
um.
They bought dozens of largeweather balloons oh dear from
(05:11):
like a military surplus store,sure, and rented a bunch of
helium tanks okay they forged arequisition, requisition,
requisition, that's the one.
Yeah, to avoid questions, sure,and obtained 45 eight foot
weather balloons.
That's a lot.
(05:31):
So to buy military gradeweather balloons, um lair,
needed to go through like amilitary supplier proper, yeah,
so the vendors required proof ofinstitutional affiliation, like
university or agency.
Sure, a requisition form,basically a formal request
(05:52):
showing you who you were andwhat the balloons were for, why
you're getting these yeah, larryfaked one.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
So way to go, larry.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
He claimed that he was purchasing them for a
project.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Well, he was.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
One site said that it was for a weather experiment,
Another site it was for acommercial shoot.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Commercial shoot Okay .
Speaker 2 (06:16):
So Walters attached the balloons to the aluminum
lawn chair.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
And he dubbed it Inspiration One Wow, okay.
Lawn chair, yeah, and he dubbedit inspiration one wow, okay.
So there were some curious copsthat had rolled up and spotted
larry and his, his crew,inflating what looked like
rather suspicious situationgoing on well, I mean, that's
not a common sight in 1982.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
I mean it's not a common site in 2025, let alone
1982.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Well, he waved them off and said oh, we're just
shooting a commercial.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Was it for Levi jeans ?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
It was probably for Sears.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Well, you'd hope so.
That's where he bought hischair from.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
So he anchored the chair to his Jeep while he was
inflating the balloons.
And to prepare for hisadventure, Walters assembled a
little survival kit.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
I was going to say did he have like a snack cart or
beverage cart?
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Kind of yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
In-flight snacks and stuff.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
So he had a parachute and a life jacket.
Of course, no seatbelt.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Why would you need one you?
Speaker 2 (07:19):
know, apparently he had an altimeter to measure
height, altimeter, I likealtimeter.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
I mean we can start calling it that.
Can you check the speedometerand let us know how fast we're
going?
Speaker 2 (07:37):
The speedometer, say it now Altimeter.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Altimeter, but it's altimeter, yeah, and it's
Altimeter.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Altimeter, but it's altimeter.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah, and it's also speedometer.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
He had a compass for direction and a CB radio for
communication.
He's a trucker, right.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
That'd be like calling it a taco meter instead
of a.
Now I'm just screwing up thewords in my brain, sorry, all
right yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
So so I was like who the heck is he trying to get a
hold of up in the air with a CBradio?
Other truckers?
So there are radio operatorsunder the agency React.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
React okay.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
And they monitor emergency CB channels and relay
distress calls to authorities.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
It's like breaker, breaker.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
One nine I'm in trouble here Exactly.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
I'm flying through a serious, serious cloud wait,
sorry, serious clap, such a dork.
Okay, so he also had plasticwater jugs as ballasts sure,
kind of like like what they havethe weights on like a hot air
balloon.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Yes, yes, exactly so he would dump the water and
lighten the load if needed.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah right, he had sandwiches for snacking so I
suppose he could probably pee inthem to make them heavier and
go down right.
And they had snacks.
What?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
no, no, I mean, I'm not wrong nothing was mentioned
in my research I didn't evenwant to ask the question he had
two liters of coca-cola and hehad a six pack of beer you've
watched.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
I think you've said you've watched super troopers
once, right yes it's just likefarva ordering a liter of cola.
That's just brought that tomind.
So sorry, I'll have to show youa clip To the clip, sorry.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
He also brought a BB pellet gun to shoot at the
balloons.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
To pop them if necessary.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Well, for when he wanted to descend.
Right and or birds Sure.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
I mean, could be a seagull flying to your face?
Speaker 2 (09:49):
I mean, you never know.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
That'd be bad.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
So Walter's plan was to float lazily up a few dozen
feet and then drift northeastover the mojave desert before
using the pelican to popballoons and come down right
that didn't happen I can'tbelieve it didn't go according
to plan with what he's doingyeah, that is so scientific
super surprising, because itsounds foolproof.
(10:14):
It really is.
He put a lot of thought intothis.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
I mean he had an altimeter and everything.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
so Shush On July 2nd, yes, 1982.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Ooh.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Walters cut the cord anchoring Inspiration 1, and it
shot up like a rocket.
Do you think he's like carol,I'm going up he had hoped to
hover at about 30 feet altitude.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Altitude he probably looked at the altimeter for that
so what it is?
Speaker 2 (10:49):
what is it again?
Altimeter altimeter okay, buthe didn't quite go 30 feet oh
and he had how many balloons?
Speaker 1 (10:58):
was it eight or no?
No, no, it was more right oh no, there was 45 that seems like
they were eight foot each eightfoot.
That's where I was mixing thenumber up in my brain.
Yeah, 45.
How did he attach 45 eight footweather balloons to a lawn
chair?
From sears even if it was fromthe softer side of sears, that's
(11:21):
not a very small.
I mean, I don't know what theirweight capacity is per a
balloon yeah I'm curious to seehow much he he weighed, how much
he was a smaller guy, was he?
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Yeah, clearly.
I mean he was in the 80s, soeverybody was pretty much
smaller.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
I was smaller in 1982 .
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Yeah, me too, I wasn't born yet.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
I was also two and a half at this time.
A little over, but either way.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
So from the ground, Larry's girlfriend pleaded with
him over the two-way radio tostart popping balloons and come
back Because pleaded with himover the 2A radio to start
popping balloons and come back,because he was getting a little
bit farther than 30 feet, right?
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Come in, Larry.
This is Carol.
You're going too fast.
You're going too fast, too far.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
I'm losing sight.
I see your shoe.
But Larry says, quote I wasn'tgoing to hassle with her because
no way in heck, you know, afterall this, my life, the money
we'd sunk into this thing tojust come down.
No way in heck, I was justgoing to have, just going to
have a good time up there.
End quote.
Oh, my word, okay.
(12:23):
So he didn't make it to 30 feet, he didn't make it to a hundred
feet, he didn't make it to athousand feet, he went 16,000
feet feet high how is hebreathing?
Speaker 1 (12:39):
well, it's got a little chilly up there for me
and and the, the oxygen level at16 000 feet can't be as good as
it is at 30 feet.
I mean, I've been up a 14 000plus foot mountain and it gets a
little rough yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
He's about three miles high.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Yeah.
So Walter said that he wasastonished by how quickly he
shot up into the clouds.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Again 45, eight foot balloons.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Up at that altitude, lacking oxygen, kind of feeling
the bitter cold up there, hefound himself both exhilarated
but also a bit terrified.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Well, he wasn't even seat belted in, so oh, and guess
what?
He lost his eyeglasses oh, didhe just go up too fast that they
just fell off, or did he lookdown and be?
Speaker 2 (13:23):
like shit.
He probably just looked down.
Uh, yeah, I would think so sostrong winds blew him into the
approach path of the Long BeachLos Angeles International
Airport area, right intocontrolled airspace.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Oh dear.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
He drifted over Southern California and Walters
used a CB radio to call for help, admitting to a monitoring
citizen band group react thatquote.
This was an unauthorizedballoon launch end quote.
And he knew he was in federalairspace jesus christ air
traffic controllers were alreadyaware of something odd I'm sure
(14:06):
they were because two airlinepilots saw him, saw him and they
probably read him.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
We're seeing something funny out the window
here.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yeah, LAX, there's something that I can't quite
describe ahead of me.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
There's a UFO, I mean it's unidentified, I mean it is
.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
So yeah, we might need to send out somebody so the
pilot of a passing twa airlinerradioed the tower to report a
man in a long chair floating at16 000 feet holding a pistol in
his hands.
Oh my word, because that faryou can't tell it was just a bb
gun but fuck?
Speaker 1 (14:46):
no, not at all and the tower.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Initially thought it was a joke, but of course radar
was like nope, there's an objectright there.
Looks like a Larry to me.
Is that Larry?
Speaker 1 (14:56):
again, Shit Larry.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Walter spent between 90 minutes to two hours in the
sky.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Wow, that's impressive.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
So eventually he started working up the nerve to
start his descent.
So he used his pellet gun toshoot out a few balloons
probably about seven of them.
Used his pellet gun to shootout a few balloons probably
about seven of them.
Okay, um, and he was prettycareful not to like unbalance
his quote-unquote aircraft, wellyeah, his launcher so he did
begin to sink slowly.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Okay, um, but then walters, not having planned this
very well, yeah droppedsomething very important his bb
gun, his bb gun I feel like heshould have had that I don't
know strapped in, tethered tothe lawn chair and or himself
and that's exactly what he saidoh, well, see, look at go larry,
(15:45):
we think alike yes okay sodescribing his dilemma over the
radio walter's joke that he wasin trouble.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
one way or another, He'd either eventually plummet,
get sucked into a jet engine orget busted when he finally
landed.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Well, I feel like he already called it in and other
people saw it, so I feel likehe's getting busted anyways.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
So later the Federal Aviation Association, the FAA,
estimated that if Larry had notpopped these seven balloons
before losing his gun, he wouldhave ascended to 50,000 feet and
been a popsicle.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
How did they guess that?
I guess Because wasn't he kindof like steady at that for a
while?
Speaker 2 (16:26):
I would imagine so.
Of course, it didn't say thathe shot up to 16,000 feet.
But, over the course of this 90minutes to two hours he got up
to 16.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
That's how far he got .
Okay, sure, that's what I wouldimagine.
I suppose he would just keepgoing, yeah, so okay, yeah, yeah
.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Wow.
So with no pellet gun, waltershad to improvise.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Did he have a knife with him or anything?
Start cutting them loose.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Well, not exactly, but he did start removing the
water from the water jugs, theballasts, why would you want to
remove the water?
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Wouldn't that make it lighter?
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Yeah, why would that work?
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Because you'd want to add weight, not remove weight.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Yeah, it literally says in my research that he
poured water out from his jugsto lighten the chair's weight.
Yeah, it literally says in myresearch that they would that he
poured water out from his jugsto lighten the chair's weight.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Yeah, because that's what it would do, but then it
would make you go up.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Well now I'm confused .
Okay, mark the time, becauseI'm going to look this up real
quick.
Okay, I've got an answer, Okay.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
And we're back.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
So this was not in my immediate research.
If you remove water from theballast, you would be making
like a horizontal change.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
So he was probably moving towards the ocean at this
point.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
And so dumping some of the ballast would have pushed
him back horizontally over, ohOver ground.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
I guess that Okay.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
And then with the balloons that were popped, it
would just be a really slow,gradual descent.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Right, you'd be dropping on the altimeter.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Would you?
Sorry, no, but that's excellent.
I'm glad you asked that because, yeah, that didn't make sense
to me.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Me either.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
So okay.
So Inspiration One did start tolose altitude and he drifted
for several miles and he got tothe point of being about 30 feet
above ground.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Oh, I feel like you could jump from there.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Yeah, he was.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
It's only three stories.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
He was flying over houses, essentially.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Oh, sure, yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
And he ended up dangled in a bunch of cables
power line cables it's probablygonna hit some power lines there
, but yeah, sure did okay and,of course, it caused a power
outage in the area for about 20minutes I'm not surprised.
I'd be shocked if it didn't solarry says, quote the chair went
over this guy's house and Inestled into these power lines,
(19:06):
hanging about eight feet underthe bottom strand.
If I'd come in a little higher,the chair would have hit the
wires and I could have beenelectrocuted, I could have been
dead, and Lord knows what else.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Lord knows what else.
What else would there bebesides death?
I mean OK, all right, besidesdeath.
I mean okay, all right.
Well, I mean I'm not surprised,uh, that he hit some power
lines especially if he's youknow traveling at 30 feet, so
how far away was he from hishome at this point?
Speaker 2 (19:36):
I don't know, I didn't, I didn't read that,
that's all right um, okay, solarry also continued quote.
It's ironic because the guy thatowned the house he was out
reading his morning people on achaise lounge next to his
swimming pool and you know justthe look on the guy's face, like
he hears the noise as I scrapedacross his roof and he looked
up and he sees this pair ofboots and a chair floating right
(19:59):
over him under the power lines.
Right, he sat there mesmerizedjust looking at me.
After about 15 seconds he gotout of his chair.
He said, hey, do you need anyhelp?
And guess what?
Speaker 1 (20:13):
it turns out he was a pilot an airline pilot on his
day off end quote wow what arethe chances that he lands in an
airline pilot's backyard?
I was going to suggest becauseyou said he pooled and like he
should have looked for a pooland jumped into it or something.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
But so walters managed to climb down to the
ground unharmed.
Um few witnesses had gatheredat this point I would imagine so
he hadn't crashed, hadn't beenfried by the power lines and he
hadn't been sucked into a jetengine.
So I would call that a success,right I mean yeah he was safe.
But he was promptly arrested.
Well, once he was back on solidground, I'm not surprised a
(20:51):
swarm of local police who hadbeen tracking the spectacle were
on site to greet the fallenchair.
Walters stepped off ofinspiration one and into the
custody of the long beach policedepartment right and when
reporters at the landing sitepressed him for why he did such
a thing, walters had the perfectdeadpan one-liner ready.
(21:12):
He said, quote a man can't justsit around.
End quote.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
But that's all he was doing.
I mean, I'm not wrong, right.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
So Walters?
The authorities who arrestedWalters didn't quite know what
law he had broken.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
yet but I'm sure they figured that out, yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Flying a lawn chair with balloons wasn't exactly in
the aviation handbook In thebooks.
Yeah, so one FAA safetyinspector said at the time,
quote we know he broke some partof the Federal Aviation Act and
as soon as we decide what partit is, a charge will be filed
end quote Jeez, that's funny.
And one official said well, ifhe had a pilot's license we'd
(21:56):
just yank that, but he doesn'thave one.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
No, no, hopefully it didn't revoke his lawn chair
privileges.
That'd be terrible.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
So the faa cited walters for operating an
aircraft in controlled airspacewithout establishing contact
with air traffic control, sothey slapped him with a four
thousand dollar fine oh shit,which in today's money is
thirteen thousand dollars.
Oh wow, walter appealed.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
He argued that Inspiration Moon was not
technically an aircraft in thelegal sense.
It was a.
Sears lawn chair with balloons.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
I mean it's not in the legal sense.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
He didn't endanger anyone.
No injuries, no collisions,just a short blackout.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Short blackout.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
It was a personal stunt, not commercial or a
repeated violation, right.
So the FAA reduced the penaltyto $1,500 or $5,000 today.
Okay, so more serious soundingcharges like operating a craft
without an airworthinesscertificate were dropped.
A lawn chair couldn't really beclassified in the usual
(23:05):
categories, no, not so much.
So, um, despite the legalreprimand, walters became like
this little folk hero.
He was on um the tonight showwith johnny carson, the late
night with david letterman wow,oh yeah.
And he said being on lettermanwas the most fun he'd ever had.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Oh, that's nice.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Yeah, I mean apparently that beat him flying,
I don't know I mean, I guess,because he did it legally he
also got the infamous darwinaward what is that?
So it's an award for people whodo the most stupid things.
(23:48):
Oh, yeah, kind of like theRazzie Awards or something.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Sure, yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
So Larry himself remained humble about all the
attention.
He said that I didn't thinkthat by fulfilling my goal in
life, my dream that I would makepeople laugh and create such a
stir Wow.
So for a brief time Larry rodethis wave of fame.
He tried to become amotivational speaker.
Oh geez, audiences were curiousfor a while, but it just never
(24:19):
kind of panned out intosomething more than that.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Yeah, it didn't really catch on there.
It was just like the 50 minutesof fame type thing yeah, and
then it just fizzled out becausepeople moved on to something
else that they didn't care aboutso one regrettable decision
walters made was in theaftermath um.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
A young neighborhood boy named jerry was inspired by
inspiration one 1.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Oh dear.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
So, Walters, in the excitement after the flight, he
gave the chair to the boy.
Not a big deal, it's just likehere have this.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Yeah, but did he try it himself then?
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Well, no, but years later, the Smithsonian
Institution.
Wanted it Wanted the chair.
Oh wow, I know.
And Walters was like, oh crap,I don't have it anymore.
But Jerry, decades later,decades later, Jerry, who still
(25:14):
had the chair, contacted ahistorian and eventually donated
Larry's original lawn chair tothe National Air and Space
Museum.
That's funny, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
So today it is on display.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Wow, yes, any of the balloons with it or no, just the
chair.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
I think they like faked balloons.
But yeah, I'm sure they did butlike the ballasts are still
there and everything like thatwhat color was the chair?
I don't know, the pictures thatI've seen are mostly black and
white, right, but yeah, I'd haveto look that up?
Speaker 1 (25:44):
No, that's okay.
I was just curious if you knewyeah.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
So he did end up dying at 44 years old.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
That early.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Yeah.
Wow, it's a little depressinghow.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Yeah, how.
Tell me later he committeddeath.
Why, I don't know.
I think he was.
He just got really depressed.
I think he he realized hisdream a little bit too soon in
life, maybe that's so.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
How old was he when he did this?
Speaker 2 (26:16):
I don't remember he died in 1993, and this took
place in 82, so he was 33 whenhe did this, wow yeah, so um,
this actually became an extremesport, so they called it cluster
ballooning.
So, um, there were a coupleother people after him who to
(26:39):
try to do this.
Um, most notably a guy namedkent couch.
He was an oregon gas stationowner and he was famous for
launching lawn chair balloonvoyages in the 2000s.
Oh wow, in one flight hetraveled 240 miles using 105
balloons with a phoebe gun.
Okay and crouch, or, excuse me,couch did um repeat the stunt
(27:02):
multiple times.
Wow, never.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Never heard of that.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Yeah, so that is the story of Lawn Chair Larry.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
You almost said Cherry again.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Lawn Cherry Larry.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
That's funny.
Well, I mean wait for him tohave some ambition.
Unfortunately, sorry to hearabout how it ended, but at least
he was able to see hisInspiration.
1 rise to the occasion.
So, well, I suppose, all right,buffoons, that's it for today's
episode.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Buckle up, because we've got another historical
adventure waiting for you.
Next time Feeling hungry formore buffoonery, or maybe you
have a burning question or awild historical theory for us to
explore.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Hit us up on social media.
We're History Buffoons Podcaston YouTube X, instagram and
Facebook.
You can also email us athistorybuffoonspodcast at
gmailcom.
We are Bradley and Kate.
Music by Corey Akers.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Follow us wherever you get your podcasts and turn
those notifications on to stayin the loop.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Until next time, stay curious and don't forget to
rate and review us.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Remember, the buffoonery never stops.
Oh, hey there.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Oh, hey there.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
How's it going today, Kate?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I'm good, this is History.
Buffoons, buffoons.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
And this is the origin of weird.
Yes, and I am Kate and I amgood, this is History, buffoons,
buffoons.
And this is the origin of weird.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yes, and I am Kate.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
And I am Bradley.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
And I'm a little under the weather.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Yeah, you know, aren't we all, because we live
on planet Earth.
I mean technically the weatheris Always above us, always above
us, yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Unless you're raining snow and then it's below us
sometimes.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
All right, let's move on.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yeah, getting a little metaphysical A little
deep.
Is that metaphysical?
That's not the right word, isit?
Speaker 1 (00:57):
That is definitely a word.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
It is.
I don't think it's the rightcontext.
It's the correct one.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
I am not what you would call a smart man, but I do
know what love is.
Smrt, smrt.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Okay, so this Origin of Weird is this kind of a fun
one?
Speaker 1 (01:19):
You had said that, because I had asked if you were
ready for it and you said, yeah,it's kind of fun.
So I'm interested to hear whatkind of fun we can have here on
the Origin of Weird.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
We're going to talk about Lawn Cherry, larry.
Lawn Cherry, lawn Chair, larry.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
I can see how you did Cherry, because his name is
Larry.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Lawn Chair Larry.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Lawn Cherry Larry.
Okay, lawn Chair Larry.
Yes, where is he from?
So his name is Larry Walwalters I would have never got
guess his first name he is acalifornia truck driver
california okay, but ever sincehe was a little boy, he actually
(01:59):
wanted to fly.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Oh yeah, so he grew some wings.
No, I'm kidding so he bought akite so um he became a us air
force pilot what year are wetalking about?
Um, we're kind of in the 80sokay, yeah our.
The year that we're going totalk about is 1982.
Oh, there you go um, but hewanted to become an air force
(02:23):
pilot, but he had pretty pooreyesight.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah.
So it doesn't really work Wellyou know back then, because
obviously there's lots ofadvancements with Blasic and all
that today, which I do believeI think we might have even
talked about they allow now.
I believe Probably Because Ithink we talked about that in
the astronaut one, oh, maybe, Ibelieve like it doesn't matter I
(02:48):
don't know you were there was Ithough but no I think, uh, I
think they do allow certain uhlasik surgeries to make it so
you can go in the air force yeahbut back in 1982 not so much.
You had to have 2020 vision.
Yeah, not in fucking not somuch you had to have 20-20
vision, not in fucking hindsighteither.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
So instead he went into the Army.
He went into the Vietnam War,but by 1982, he was still in
love with being up in the air.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Did he jump a lot?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
He did want to take to the skies, so you know what
he did.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Built his own plane.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
He bought a Sears brand.
You remember good old Sears.
The softer side of Sears.
In fact, Softer side of Sears.
Yeah, that was the jingleSofter side of Sears.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Oh, I don't remember that.
Oh yeah, the brand name or thatwas the jingle Softer side of
Sears?
Oh, I don't remember that.
Oh yeah, Wow, okay yeah, softerside of Sears.
I used to go to Sears a lotwith my dad back in the day.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Because Sears wasn't.
Sears more about likeappliances and stuff and then
they started like doing clothesand that's why they had the
softer side of Sears.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Oh, I guess I remember is they always had
everything, but back in the dayyou could buy a house from them.
Huh, that's like all those boxcookie cutter houses you could
buy a house from Sears and theywould ship all the stuff you
need and plop it on your land.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Interesting, didn't know that yeah so.
I mean, that's what a lot ofthose old like that's why a lot
of houses look the same?
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Yeah, because it was relatively inexpensive, but, you
know, affordable for a lot morepeople kind of.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Thing.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
So unless I'm thinking of the wrong brand, but
I'm pretty sure it was Sears-Well, he did buy a Sears lawn
chair.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
You know those like aluminum ones.
Oh yeah, and balloons.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Oh, and so he's like let's take to the sky.
With balloons, balloons take tothe sky with balloons and
cherries.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
I mean, he said, if he didn't pursue this dream, he
was gonna end up in the funnyfarm well, I feel like the way
he's going about it should havewent there anyways so in mid
1982, walters and his girlfriendat the time, carol van deusen,
um.
They bought dozens of largeweather balloons oh dear from
(05:11):
like a military surplus store,sure, and rented a bunch of
helium tanks okay they forged arequisition, requisition,
requisition, that's the one.
Yeah, to avoid questions, sure,and obtained 45 eight foot
weather balloons.
That's a lot.
(05:31):
So to buy military gradeweather balloons, um lair,
needed to go through like amilitary supplier proper, yeah,
so the vendors required proof ofinstitutional affiliation, like
university or agency.
Sure, a requisition form,basically a formal request
(05:52):
showing you who you were andwhat the balloons were for, why
you're getting these yeah, larryfaked one.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
So way to go, larry.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
He claimed that he was purchasing them for a
project.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Well, he was.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
One site said that it was for a weather experiment,
Another site it was for acommercial shoot.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Commercial shoot Okay .
Speaker 2 (06:16):
So Walters attached the balloons to the aluminum
lawn chair.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
And he dubbed it Inspiration One Wow, okay.
Lawn chair, yeah, and he dubbedit inspiration one wow, okay.
So there were some curious copsthat had rolled up and spotted
larry and his, his crew,inflating what looked like
rather suspicious situationgoing on well, I mean, that's
not a common sight in 1982.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
I mean it's not a common site in 2025, let alone
1982.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Well, he waved them off and said oh, we're just
shooting a commercial.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Was it for Levi jeans ?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
It was probably for Sears.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Well, you'd hope so.
That's where he bought hischair from.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
So he anchored the chair to his Jeep while he was
inflating the balloons.
And to prepare for hisadventure, Walters assembled a
little survival kit.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
I was going to say did he have like a snack cart or
beverage cart?
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Kind of yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
In-flight snacks and stuff.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
So he had a parachute and a life jacket.
Of course, no seatbelt.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Why would you need one you?
Speaker 2 (07:19):
know, apparently he had an altimeter to measure
height, altimeter, I likealtimeter.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
I mean we can start calling it that.
Can you check the speedometerand let us know how fast we're
going?
Speaker 2 (07:37):
The speedometer, say it now Altimeter.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Altimeter, but it's altimeter, yeah, and it's
Altimeter.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Altimeter, but it's altimeter.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah, and it's also speedometer.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
He had a compass for direction and a CB radio for
communication.
He's a trucker, right.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
That'd be like calling it a taco meter instead
of a.
Now I'm just screwing up thewords in my brain, sorry, all
right yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
So so I was like who the heck is he trying to get a
hold of up in the air with a CBradio?
Other truckers?
So there are radio operatorsunder the agency React.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
React okay.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
And they monitor emergency CB channels and relay
distress calls to authorities.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
It's like breaker, breaker.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
One nine I'm in trouble here Exactly.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
I'm flying through a serious, serious cloud wait,
sorry, serious clap, such a dork.
Okay, so he also had plasticwater jugs as ballasts sure,
kind of like like what they havethe weights on like a hot air
balloon.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Yes, yes, exactly so he would dump the water and
lighten the load if needed.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah right, he had sandwiches for snacking so I
suppose he could probably pee inthem to make them heavier and
go down right.
And they had snacks.
What?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
no, no, I mean, I'm not wrong nothing was mentioned
in my research I didn't evenwant to ask the question he had
two liters of coca-cola and hehad a six pack of beer you've
watched.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
I think you've said you've watched super troopers
once, right yes it's just likefarva ordering a liter of cola.
That's just brought that tomind.
So sorry, I'll have to show youa clip To the clip, sorry.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
He also brought a BB pellet gun to shoot at the
balloons.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
To pop them if necessary.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Well, for when he wanted to descend.
Right and or birds Sure.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
I mean, could be a seagull flying to your face?
Speaker 2 (09:49):
I mean, you never know.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
That'd be bad.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
So Walter's plan was to float lazily up a few dozen
feet and then drift northeastover the mojave desert before
using the pelican to popballoons and come down right
that didn't happen I can'tbelieve it didn't go according
to plan with what he's doingyeah, that is so scientific
super surprising, because itsounds foolproof.
(10:14):
It really is.
He put a lot of thought intothis.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
I mean he had an altimeter and everything.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
so Shush On July 2nd, yes, 1982.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Ooh.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Walters cut the cord anchoring Inspiration 1, and it
shot up like a rocket.
Do you think he's like carol,I'm going up he had hoped to
hover at about 30 feet altitude.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Altitude he probably looked at the altimeter for that
so what it is?
Speaker 2 (10:49):
what is it again?
Altimeter altimeter okay, buthe didn't quite go 30 feet oh
and he had how many balloons?
Speaker 1 (10:58):
was it eight or no?
No, no, it was more right oh no, there was 45 that seems like
they were eight foot each eightfoot.
That's where I was mixing thenumber up in my brain.
Yeah, 45.
How did he attach 45 eight footweather balloons to a lawn
chair?
From sears even if it was fromthe softer side of sears, that's
(11:21):
not a very small.
I mean, I don't know what theirweight capacity is per a
balloon yeah I'm curious to seehow much he he weighed, how much
he was a smaller guy, was he?
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Yeah, clearly.
I mean he was in the 80s, soeverybody was pretty much
smaller.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
I was smaller in 1982 .
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Yeah, me too, I wasn't born yet.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
I was also two and a half at this time.
A little over, but either way.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
So from the ground, Larry's girlfriend pleaded with
him over the two-way radio tostart popping balloons and come
back Because pleaded with himover the 2A radio to start
popping balloons and come back,because he was getting a little
bit farther than 30 feet, right?
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Come in, Larry.
This is Carol.
You're going too fast.
You're going too fast, too far.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
I'm losing sight.
I see your shoe.
But Larry says, quote I wasn'tgoing to hassle with her because
no way in heck, you know, afterall this, my life, the money
we'd sunk into this thing tojust come down.
No way in heck, I was justgoing to have, just going to
have a good time up there.
End quote.
Oh, my word, okay.
(12:23):
So he didn't make it to 30 feet, he didn't make it to a hundred
feet, he didn't make it to athousand feet, he went 16,000
feet feet high how is hebreathing?
Speaker 1 (12:39):
well, it's got a little chilly up there for me
and and the, the oxygen level at16 000 feet can't be as good as
it is at 30 feet.
I mean, I've been up a 14 000plus foot mountain and it gets a
little rough yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
He's about three miles high.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Yeah.
So Walter said that he wasastonished by how quickly he
shot up into the clouds.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Again 45, eight foot balloons.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Up at that altitude, lacking oxygen, kind of feeling
the bitter cold up there, hefound himself both exhilarated
but also a bit terrified.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Well, he wasn't even seat belted in, so oh, and guess
what?
He lost his eyeglasses oh, didhe just go up too fast that they
just fell off, or did he lookdown and be?
Speaker 2 (13:23):
like shit.
He probably just looked down.
Uh, yeah, I would think so sostrong winds blew him into the
approach path of the Long BeachLos Angeles International
Airport area, right intocontrolled airspace.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Oh dear.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
He drifted over Southern California and Walters
used a CB radio to call for help, admitting to a monitoring
citizen band group react thatquote.
This was an unauthorizedballoon launch end quote.
And he knew he was in federalairspace jesus christ air
traffic controllers were alreadyaware of something odd I'm sure
(14:06):
they were because two airlinepilots saw him, saw him and they
probably read him.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
We're seeing something funny out the window
here.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yeah, LAX, there's something that I can't quite
describe ahead of me.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
There's a UFO, I mean it's unidentified, I mean it is
.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
So yeah, we might need to send out somebody so the
pilot of a passing twa airlinerradioed the tower to report a
man in a long chair floating at16 000 feet holding a pistol in
his hands.
Oh my word, because that faryou can't tell it was just a bb
gun but fuck?
Speaker 1 (14:46):
no, not at all and the tower.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Initially thought it was a joke, but of course radar
was like nope, there's an objectright there.
Looks like a Larry to me.
Is that Larry?
Speaker 1 (14:56):
again, Shit Larry.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Walter spent between 90 minutes to two hours in the
sky.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Wow, that's impressive.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
So eventually he started working up the nerve to
start his descent.
So he used his pellet gun toshoot out a few balloons
probably about seven of them.
Used his pellet gun to shootout a few balloons probably
about seven of them.
Okay, um, and he was prettycareful not to like unbalance
his quote-unquote aircraft, wellyeah, his launcher so he did
begin to sink slowly.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Okay, um, but then walters, not having planned this
very well, yeah droppedsomething very important his bb
gun, his bb gun I feel like heshould have had that I don't
know strapped in, tethered tothe lawn chair and or himself
and that's exactly what he saidoh, well, see, look at go larry,
(15:45):
we think alike yes okay sodescribing his dilemma over the
radio walter's joke that he wasin trouble.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
one way or another, He'd either eventually plummet,
get sucked into a jet engine orget busted when he finally
landed.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Well, I feel like he already called it in and other
people saw it, so I feel likehe's getting busted anyways.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
So later the Federal Aviation Association, the FAA,
estimated that if Larry had notpopped these seven balloons
before losing his gun, he wouldhave ascended to 50,000 feet and
been a popsicle.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
How did they guess that?
I guess Because wasn't he kindof like steady at that for a
while?
Speaker 2 (16:26):
I would imagine so.
Of course, it didn't say thathe shot up to 16,000 feet.
But, over the course of this 90minutes to two hours he got up
to 16.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
That's how far he got .
Okay, sure, that's what I wouldimagine.
I suppose he would just keepgoing, yeah, so okay, yeah, yeah
.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Wow.
So with no pellet gun, waltershad to improvise.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Did he have a knife with him or anything?
Start cutting them loose.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Well, not exactly, but he did start removing the
water from the water jugs, theballasts, why would you want to
remove the water?
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Wouldn't that make it lighter?
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Yeah, why would that work?
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Because you'd want to add weight, not remove weight.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Yeah, it literally says in my research that he
poured water out from his jugsto lighten the chair's weight.
Yeah, it literally says in myresearch that they would that he
poured water out from his jugsto lighten the chair's weight.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Yeah, because that's what it would do, but then it
would make you go up.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Well now I'm confused .
Okay, mark the time, becauseI'm going to look this up real
quick.
Okay, I've got an answer, Okay.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
And we're back.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
So this was not in my immediate research.
If you remove water from theballast, you would be making
like a horizontal change.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
So he was probably moving towards the ocean at this
point.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
And so dumping some of the ballast would have pushed
him back horizontally over, ohOver ground.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
I guess that Okay.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
And then with the balloons that were popped, it
would just be a really slow,gradual descent.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Right, you'd be dropping on the altimeter.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Would you?
Sorry, no, but that's excellent.
I'm glad you asked that because, yeah, that didn't make sense
to me.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Me either.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
So okay.
So Inspiration One did start tolose altitude and he drifted
for several miles and he got tothe point of being about 30 feet
above ground.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Oh, I feel like you could jump from there.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Yeah, he was.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
It's only three stories.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
He was flying over houses, essentially.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Oh, sure, yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
And he ended up dangled in a bunch of cables
power line cables it's probablygonna hit some power lines there
, but yeah, sure did okay and,of course, it caused a power
outage in the area for about 20minutes I'm not surprised.
I'd be shocked if it didn't solarry says, quote the chair went
over this guy's house and Inestled into these power lines,
(19:06):
hanging about eight feet underthe bottom strand.
If I'd come in a little higher,the chair would have hit the
wires and I could have beenelectrocuted, I could have been
dead, and Lord knows what else.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Lord knows what else.
What else would there bebesides death?
I mean OK, all right, besidesdeath.
I mean okay, all right.
Well, I mean I'm not surprised,uh, that he hit some power
lines especially if he's youknow traveling at 30 feet, so
how far away was he from hishome at this point?
Speaker 2 (19:36):
I don't know, I didn't, I didn't read that,
that's all right um, okay, solarry also continued quote.
It's ironic because the guy thatowned the house he was out
reading his morning people on achaise lounge next to his
swimming pool and you know justthe look on the guy's face, like
he hears the noise as I scrapedacross his roof and he looked
up and he sees this pair ofboots and a chair floating right
(19:59):
over him under the power lines.
Right, he sat there mesmerizedjust looking at me.
After about 15 seconds he gotout of his chair.
He said, hey, do you need anyhelp?
And guess what?
Speaker 1 (20:13):
it turns out he was a pilot an airline pilot on his
day off end quote wow what arethe chances that he lands in an
airline pilot's backyard?
I was going to suggest becauseyou said he pooled and like he
should have looked for a pooland jumped into it or something.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
But so walters managed to climb down to the
ground unharmed.
Um few witnesses had gatheredat this point I would imagine so
he hadn't crashed, hadn't beenfried by the power lines and he
hadn't been sucked into a jetengine.
So I would call that a success,right I mean yeah he was safe.
But he was promptly arrested.
Well, once he was back on solidground, I'm not surprised a
(20:51):
swarm of local police who hadbeen tracking the spectacle were
on site to greet the fallenchair.
Walters stepped off ofinspiration one and into the
custody of the long beach policedepartment right and when
reporters at the landing sitepressed him for why he did such
a thing, walters had the perfectdeadpan one-liner ready.
(21:12):
He said, quote a man can't justsit around.
End quote.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
But that's all he was doing.
I mean, I'm not wrong, right.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
So Walters?
The authorities who arrestedWalters didn't quite know what
law he had broken.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
yet but I'm sure they figured that out, yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Flying a lawn chair with balloons wasn't exactly in
the aviation handbook In thebooks.
Yeah, so one FAA safetyinspector said at the time,
quote we know he broke some partof the Federal Aviation Act and
as soon as we decide what partit is, a charge will be filed
end quote Jeez, that's funny.
And one official said well, ifhe had a pilot's license we'd
(21:56):
just yank that, but he doesn'thave one.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
No, no, hopefully it didn't revoke his lawn chair
privileges.
That'd be terrible.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
So the faa cited walters for operating an
aircraft in controlled airspacewithout establishing contact
with air traffic control, sothey slapped him with a four
thousand dollar fine oh shit,which in today's money is
thirteen thousand dollars.
Oh wow, walter appealed.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
He argued that Inspiration Moon was not
technically an aircraft in thelegal sense.
It was a.
Sears lawn chair with balloons.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
I mean it's not in the legal sense.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
He didn't endanger anyone.
No injuries, no collisions,just a short blackout.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Short blackout.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
It was a personal stunt, not commercial or a
repeated violation, right.
So the FAA reduced the penaltyto $1,500 or $5,000 today.
Okay, so more serious soundingcharges like operating a craft
without an airworthinesscertificate were dropped.
A lawn chair couldn't really beclassified in the usual
(23:05):
categories, no, not so much.
So, um, despite the legalreprimand, walters became like
this little folk hero.
He was on um the tonight showwith johnny carson, the late
night with david letterman wow,oh yeah.
And he said being on lettermanwas the most fun he'd ever had.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Oh, that's nice.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Yeah, I mean apparently that beat him flying,
I don't know I mean, I guess,because he did it legally he
also got the infamous darwinaward what is that?
So it's an award for people whodo the most stupid things.
(23:48):
Oh, yeah, kind of like theRazzie Awards or something.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Sure, yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
So Larry himself remained humble about all the
attention.
He said that I didn't thinkthat by fulfilling my goal in
life, my dream that I would makepeople laugh and create such a
stir Wow.
So for a brief time Larry rodethis wave of fame.
He tried to become amotivational speaker.
Oh geez, audiences were curiousfor a while, but it just never
(24:19):
kind of panned out intosomething more than that.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Yeah, it didn't really catch on there.
It was just like the 50 minutesof fame type thing yeah, and
then it just fizzled out becausepeople moved on to something
else that they didn't care aboutso one regrettable decision
walters made was in theaftermath um.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
A young neighborhood boy named jerry was inspired by
inspiration one 1.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Oh dear.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
So, Walters, in the excitement after the flight, he
gave the chair to the boy.
Not a big deal, it's just likehere have this.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Yeah, but did he try it himself then?
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Well, no, but years later, the Smithsonian
Institution.
Wanted it Wanted the chair.
Oh wow, I know.
And Walters was like, oh crap,I don't have it anymore.
But Jerry, decades later,decades later, Jerry, who still
(25:14):
had the chair, contacted ahistorian and eventually donated
Larry's original lawn chair tothe National Air and Space
Museum.
That's funny, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
So today it is on display.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Wow, yes, any of the balloons with it or no, just the
chair.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
I think they like faked balloons.
But yeah, I'm sure they did butlike the ballasts are still
there and everything like thatwhat color was the chair?
I don't know, the pictures thatI've seen are mostly black and
white, right, but yeah, I'd haveto look that up?
Speaker 1 (25:44):
No, that's okay.
I was just curious if you knewyeah.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
So he did end up dying at 44 years old.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
That early.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Yeah.
Wow, it's a little depressinghow.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Yeah, how.
Tell me later he committeddeath.
Why, I don't know.
I think he was.
He just got really depressed.
I think he he realized hisdream a little bit too soon in
life, maybe that's so.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
How old was he when he did this?
Speaker 2 (26:16):
I don't remember he died in 1993, and this took
place in 82, so he was 33 whenhe did this, wow yeah, so um,
this actually became an extremesport, so they called it cluster
ballooning.
So, um, there were a coupleother people after him who to
(26:39):
try to do this.
Um, most notably a guy namedkent couch.
He was an oregon gas stationowner and he was famous for
launching lawn chair balloonvoyages in the 2000s.
Oh wow, in one flight hetraveled 240 miles using 105
balloons with a phoebe gun.
Okay and crouch, or, excuse me,couch did um repeat the stunt
(27:02):
multiple times.
Wow, never.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Never heard of that.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Yeah, so that is the story of Lawn Chair Larry.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
You almost said Cherry again.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Lawn Cherry Larry.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
That's funny.
Well, I mean wait for him tohave some ambition.
Unfortunately, sorry to hearabout how it ended, but at least
he was able to see hisInspiration.
1 rise to the occasion.
So, well, I suppose, all right,buffoons, that's it for today's
episode.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Buckle up, because we've got another historical
adventure waiting for you.
Next time Feeling hungry formore buffoonery, or maybe you
have a burning question or awild historical theory for us to
explore.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Hit us up on social media.
We're History Buffoons Podcaston YouTube X, instagram and
Facebook.
You can also email us athistorybuffoonspodcast at
gmailcom.
We are Bradley and Kate.
Music by Corey Akers.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Follow us wherever you get your podcasts and turn
those notifications on to stayin the loop.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Until next time, stay curious and don't forget to
rate and review us.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Remember, the buffoonery never stops.
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