When cotton was gathered by hand, and gins processed only a few bales an hour, farmers placed small wooden sheds at the edge of fields to store the harvest until it could be ginned. They were impervious to precipitation … but not fire.
That fiendish fire fan, Satan, is always on the lookout for young minds prone to mischief, and often found mine available. He knew fire fascinated me, and planted an idea in my head that would satiate our mutual pyromania.
Back then, hardware stores offered a hand-warming product known as Thermo. A gel with an aroma that pyromaniacs loved, it came in a can with a screw-off top. I’d often light a can of it at night and watch the hypnotic blue flame.
On my twelfth birthday, while working my way through a set of World Book encyclopedias, I read the chapter on hot-air balloons. I learned that mankind first broke the surly bonds of earth in one of those majestic crafts. In 1783, the Montgolfier brothers stepped into a gondola, lit a fire and levitated several hundred feet, cheered by thousands of Parisians.
The technology is simple. All one needs is a bag (balloonists call it an envelope) for containing hot air, a gondola, and fuel. I decided to build a mini-hot-air balloon. A can of Thermo served as both gondola and fuel, and I fashioned a wire framework to support my envelope — a lime-green, airtight cottonseed sack. She was a beauty! I christened her the USS Dunleith.
Now, Dunleith was a tiny speck on few maps. Only a dozen families — less than fifty humble, bucolic souls — called it home. Television had not yet polluted and debauched American living rooms, so Dunleithians sat on their front porches at night, enjoying the quiet and calm of a place as rural as any on earth. It was on one of those nights that I launched the USS Dunleith on her maiden voyage.
When I lit the Thermo, the envelope began taking shape and glowed eerily. I was transfixed with excitement and felt like Orville and Wilbur must have felt at Kitty Hawk. The luminous orb hovered heavenward and meandered toward the little cluster of houses that constituted its namesake.
Suddenly, the pleasant chatter wafting across a serene Southern night became exclamations — “What’s that? A UFO? A bomb? The Angel of Death? It’s the end of time!”
Dunleith’s entire population quaked in fear, gawking at the USS Dunleith as it hovered ominously in the black sky, emanating a greenish UFO glow.
Finally, the balloon descended, but instead of landing on land, it came to rest squarely atop a cotton shed! Soon, flames climbed high into the night, and Satan danced in delight.
I played with fire, and Dad’s belt burned my buttocks, but at least he had a sense of humor. For years afterward, when folks asked him to explain the charred can and tangle of wires hanging in his shop, he told them the story of the USS Dunleith.
Jimmy Reed is an Oxford, Mississippi resident, Ole Miss and Delta State University alumnus, Vietnam Era Army Veteran, former Mississippi Delta cotton farmer and ginner, author, and retired college teacher.
This story is a selection from Jimmy Reed’s latest book, entitled The Jaybird Tales.
Copies, including personalized autographs, can be reserved by notifying the author via email (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).
