The Last Lecture

The Last Lecture
The balloon traveled over urban Pittsburgh, back and forth above
the city’s famous three rivers. This was not where the ballooner wanted
to be, and I could see he was worried. “There’s no place to put this bird
down,” he said, almost to himself. Then to us: “We’ve got to keep
looking.”
The newlyweds were no longer enjoying the view. We were all
looking for a large open space hidden in an urban landscape. Finally, we
floated into the suburbs, and the ballooner spotted a big field off in the
distance. He committed to putting the balloon down in it. “This should
work,” he said as he started descending fast.
I looked down at the field. It appeared to be fairly large, but I
noticed there was a train track at the edge of it. My eyes followed the
track. A train was coming. At that moment, I was no longer a groom. I
was an engineer. I said to the ballooner: “Sir, I think I see a variable
here.”
“A variable? Is that what you computer guys call a problem?” he
asked.
“Well, yes. What if we hit the train?”
He answered honestly. We were in the basket of the balloon, and
the odds of the basket hitting the train were small. However, there was
certainly a risk that the giant balloon itself (called “the envelope”) would
fall onto the tracks when we hit the ground. If the speeding train got
tangled in the falling envelope, we’d be at the wrong end of a rope, inside
a basket getting dragged. In that case, great bodily harm was not just
possible, but probable.
“When this thing hits the ground, run as fast as you can,” the
ballooner said. These are not the words most brides dream about hearing
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