Danny Deckchair and George Plimpton

We went to see the movie Danny Deckchair which I had read about in the New York Times this summer. It is an Australian movie about a shiftless cement worker who dreams of escaping his boring life. He ties helium balloons to his deckchair in the middle of a backyard "barbie" and takes off for a new life in a new town with a new woman. The movie was a hit with David because it has a motorcycle in it. This story had been on my classroom bulletin board for the first day of school as an example of the American Dreamer. The coincidence is I have taught this story before. I originally read about it in Robert Fulghum's book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. It is the story of Larry Walters who really did tie 42 weather balloons to a lawn chair and shoot up 16,000 feet into the air. Now Larry's flight is the cover story of a book of previously published essays by George Plimpton called The Man in the Flying Lawn Chair. We bought this book Labor Day weekend and David read it.