Some readers will recall the end of last month’s column. In brief: Curmudgeon suggested that the various members of the General Store Membership List might be persuaded to join him for a jaunt around the area, using his Chevy truck for the mode of transportation, promising an early lunch where the food is reasonably good and local beers are available in refreshing amounts.
But before we join this merry band it’s necessary to introduce our readers to a scene that occurred in the General Store during the last week of November.
Present for that session were again, the two Storekeeps, Mr. and Mrs. and Cityfella, up from Atlanta to escape the madding crowd. Added to the mix were the Postman (who had nothing good to say about the PO’s move from Asheville to Greenville, SC); the Breadman, Sarah and Ginger, the Muffet Sisters (historians in their own right); and Fred Furling, a pleasant bachelor who was busy deciding if he should run in the next general election for Congress.
Upon entering the store that morning, Curmudgeon came with a number of rolled up papers that suggested their being blueprints of one sort or another while he wore a backwards baseball cap with the insignia of an old hot-air balloon and the letters WNC Flies.
“It seems to me,” said Curmudgeon, “that all the folks in the village need something new to set their sights upon, something to inspire a sense of hope and freedom, something to take our minds off of this state’s continual plummet into the valley of despair.”
“Elaine,” (Mrs. Storekeep’s proper name), “could you help me clear a space on the counter so that I can unroll these plans so I could possibly interest you all in a grand project that I will beg for your help with but will pay the costs up front, using some money I’ve set aside for a rainy day?” He paused for effect, “It all revolves around the efforts of Félix Tournachon, one of Europe’s great balloonists of the mid-1800s.” Turning to the Muffet sisters he added, “and do you Ginger remember this great man?”
“I do indeed,” she answered, “he was the gentleman who tried to pilot a balloon that was lost in a great storm. As I recall his birth name was Gaspard-Félix Tournachon and he was born in Paris in the year 1820 to a printer father and a shopkeeper mother who never married until the lad was six years old and his brother Adrian, was one.”
“In time, Felix gave up medical school, wrote theatre criticism for a while then, taking the name of Nadar, moved in a great career revolving around photography, and finally became enamored with ballooning. He was also a big character in the development of Impressionism as a way of art.”
“I applaud your memory,” said Curmudgeon, “and I hasten to add that when our hero took off from the Champ de Mars in the Paris of 1863, he was blown farther east than he wished to be by a furious gale and some seventeen hours later he crash-landed in Hanover, Germany. But that is not the part of the story that I wish to involve all those present to take part in. No, I wanted to point out Tournachon’s balloon that he called The Giant and how he built his masterpiece.”
Again Curmudgeon paused for effect, took off his cap and pointing to the balloon emblem said: “The basket of his very large balloon is recorded in the plans I’ve unrolled on the counter and its structure resembled a two-story-high cottage made of wicker and actually contained a small dining room, a lavatory, and a small photo-lab where upon landing at various townships, those aboard could sell photos to admirers and possibly change the course of history.”
“Remember,” said Curmudgeon in a fixating voice, “Félix was a friend of Victor Hugo who had written: ‘Raise your eyes to the heavens … There I see two kinds of flight, that of the cloud and that of the bird. One is the plaything of the wind [and one] opposes the wind and dominates it. Let our aeronauts be inspired by the birds.’”
Silence dominated the General Store as those in attendance wondered what Curmudgeon wished to do and how much of their future existence would be involved in his efforts.
“I want,” said Curmudgeon, “for you to help me build a great balloon and we will fly to Raleigh and straighten out the future of North Carolina!”
Peter Loewer has written and illustrated more than twenty-five books on natural history over the past thirty years.
