Hot Air Balloons

This past Saturday, my wife Rita and I have the privilege of taking our first ride in a hot air balloon as part of the Northwest Art and Air Festival.  Rita and I had skydived together a couple of years ago and enjoyed that experience immensely, but the hot air balloon offered different - and perhaps deeper - kind of experience that neither of us will soon forget.

One of the big differences was the ability to converse while in the air - to be able to reflect on the experience with the people we were sharing the ride with us.  And so I got to know Randall - our pilot - who, once he learned that I was LBCC's presented, shared with me that he had no less than three Associates degrees from one of our sister schools, Portland Community College.  So he and I talked a lot about the opportunities that our respective educations had afforded us and he shared that, while he had for a time considered going on to complete a Bachelors degree, his three community college degrees (including one in aircraft operations and service) had provided all the opportunities he needed.... including the doorway into his business that rebuilds hot air balloons!

I thanked him for the ride, and he thanked me for the work we do as community colleges.

Fear

It's hard to explain the moments of terror that cause me to lose control of my legs, that cause me to lose my balance and collapse to the ground......

I am deathly affraid of heights. But, in spite of this fear - or perhaps because of this fear - I tend to put myself into situations where I am faced with this thing that fear almost more than anything.  A couple of years ago I went skydiving.  Last year I climbed a mountain.  This year I went backpacking in the Goat Rocks National Wilderness Area. 

So, there was a place in this most recent backpack where the trail ran along a vertical face maybe 300 ft above the ground below.... At one point the trail narrowed to no wider than a foot and there, for about two feet, the trail actually sluffed off into the void below... a void that I had to step over! I panicked and it was only by focusing my eyes on my friend in front of me, and tuning my ears to his encouraging words, that I made it through that section.

Yes, I made it, but the fear associated with those moments stole the joy from miles of the hike that I would have otherwise enjoyed and, in that experience, I realized that fear is NOT always exhilarating - sometimes it's just pure debilitating FEAR!

Not sure I'm ready to run away from my fears but, at 59 years of age, perhaps I'm learning to be more prudent in my efforts to face it.

Perhaps....