Setting free the balloons

At the pumpkin festival in Cassy the kids are each given a balloon and a card on which is recorded their name, address and phone number. At first I thought how quaint...they actually take measures to reunite kids with their lost balloons...






then I saw the other kids releasing their balloons into the air, watching them float lazily up into blue sky above until they caught a breeze and drifted off over surrounding trees and rooftops and out of sight.



















Even though the idea of pruposefully setting one's own balloon free initially seemed strange to Colm and Tess, the example of the others led them quickly to embrace the idea. Their heads laid back, jaws slack, their faces modulating between expressions of pure delight and alarm...

As we watched the balloons sail away, it occured to me that we had just delivered confidential information concerning our children to the stratosphere and whatever sundry and possibly disreputable types might live under it...was I being paranoid? ...it didn't matter since the matter was literally out of my hands.

K