The Origin Of Weird: Lawn Chair Larry

0:16 Oh, hey there. Oh, hey there. How's it going today, Kate? I'm good, this is History. Buffoons, buffoons. And this is the origin of weird. Yes, and I am Kate and I am good, this is History, buffoons, buffoons. And this is the origin of weird. Yes, and I am Kate. And I am Bradley. And I'm a little under the weather. Yeah, you know, aren't we all, because we live on planet Earth. I mean technically the weather is Always above us, always above us, yeah. Unless you're raining snow and then it's below us sometimes. All right, let's move on. Yeah, getting a little metaphysical A little deep. Is that metaphysical? That's not the right word, is it?

0:57 That is definitely a word. It is. I don't think it's the right context. It's the correct one. I am not what you would call a smart man, but I do know what love is. Smrt, smrt. Okay, so this Origin of Weird is this kind of a fun one? You had said that, because I had asked if you were ready for it and you said, yeah, it's kind of fun. So I'm interested to hear what kind of fun we can have here on the Origin of Weird. We're going to talk about Lawn Cherry, larry. Lawn Cherry, lawn Chair, larry. I can see how you did Cherry, because his name is Larry. Lawn Chair Larry. Lawn Cherry Larry. Okay, lawn Chair Larry.

1:39 Yes, where is he from? So his name is Larry Wal walters I would have never got guess his first name he is a california truck driver california okay, but ever since he was a little boy, he actually wanted to fly. Oh yeah, so he grew some wings. No, I'm kidding so he bought a kite so um he became a us air force pilot what year are we talking about? Um, we're kind of in the 80s okay, yeah our. The year that we're going to talk about is 1982. Oh, there you go um, but he wanted to become an air force pilot, but he had pretty poor eyesight.

2:26 Yeah. So it doesn't really work Well you know back then, because obviously there's lots of advancements with Blasic and all that today, which I do believe I think we might have even talked about they allow now. I believe Probably Because I think we talked about that in the astronaut one, oh, maybe, I believe like it doesn't matter I don't know you were there was I though but no I think, uh, I think they do allow certain uh lasik surgeries to make it so you can go in the air force yeah but back in 1982 not so much. You had to have 2020 vision. Yeah, not in fucking not so much you had to have 20-20 vision, not in fucking hindsight either.

3:08 So instead he went into the Army. He went into the Vietnam War, but by 1982, he was still in love with being up in the air. Did he jump a lot? He did want to take to the skies, so you know what he did. Built his own plane. He bought a Sears brand. You remember good old Sears. The softer side of Sears. In fact, Softer side of Sears. Yeah, that was the jingle Softer side of Sears. Oh, I don't remember that. Oh yeah, the brand name or that was the jingle Softer side of Sears? Oh, I don't remember that. Oh yeah, Wow, okay yeah, softer side of Sears. I used to go to Sears a lot with my dad back in the day.

3:50 Because Sears wasn't. Sears more about like appliances and stuff and then they started like doing clothes and that's why they had the softer side of Sears. Oh, I guess I remember is they always had everything, but back in the day you could buy a house from them. Huh, that's like all those box cookie cutter houses you could buy a house from Sears and they would ship all the stuff you need and plop it on your land. Interesting, didn't know that yeah so. I mean, that's what a lot of those old like that's why a lot of houses look the same? Yeah, because it was relatively inexpensive, but, you know, affordable for a lot more people kind of. Thing. So unless I'm thinking of the wrong brand, but I'm pretty sure it was Sears- Well, he did buy a Sears lawn chair.

4:34 You know those like aluminum ones. Oh yeah, and balloons. Oh, and so he's like let's take to the sky. With balloons, balloons take to the sky with balloons and cherries. I mean, he said, if he didn't pursue this dream, he was gonna end up in the funny farm well, I feel like the way he's going about it should have went there anyways so in mid 1982, walters and his girlfriend at the time, carol van deusen, um. They bought dozens of large weather balloons oh dear from like a military surplus store, sure, and rented a bunch of helium tanks okay they forged a requisition, requisition, requisition, that's the one.

5:23 Yeah, to avoid questions, sure, and obtained 45 eight foot weather balloons. That's a lot. So to buy military grade weather balloons, um lair, needed to go through like a military supplier proper, yeah, so the vendors required proof of institutional affiliation, like university or agency. Sure, a requisition form, basically a formal request showing you who you were and what the balloons were for, why you're getting these yeah, larry faked one. So way to go, larry. He claimed that he was purchasing them for a project.

6:06 Well, he was. One site said that it was for a weather experiment, Another site it was for a commercial shoot. Commercial shoot Okay. So Walters attached the balloons to the aluminum lawn chair. Yeah. And he dubbed it Inspiration One Wow, okay. Lawn chair, yeah, and he dubbed it inspiration one wow, okay. So there were some curious cops that had rolled up and spotted larry and his, his crew, inflating what looked like rather suspicious situation going on well, I mean, that's not a common sight in 1982. I mean it's not a common site in 2025, let alone 1982. Well, he waved them off and said oh, we're just shooting a commercial.

6:49 Was it for Levi jeans? It was probably for Sears. Well, you'd hope so. That's where he bought his chair from. So he anchored the chair to his Jeep while he was inflating the balloons. And to prepare for his adventure, Walters assembled a little survival kit. I was going to say did he have like a snack cart or beverage cart? Kind of yeah. In-flight snacks and stuff. So he had a parachute and a life jacket. Of course, no seatbelt. Why would you need one you? know, apparently he had an altimeter to measure height, altimeter, I like altimeter. I mean we can start calling it that. Can you check the speedometer and let us know how fast we're going?

7:37 The speedometer, say it now Altimeter. Altimeter, but it's altimeter, yeah, and it's Altimeter. Altimeter, but it's altimeter. Yeah, and it's also speedometer. He had a compass for direction and a CB radio for communication. He's a trucker, right. That'd be like calling it a taco meter instead of a. Now I'm just screwing up the words in my brain, sorry, all right yeah. So so I was like who the heck is he trying to get a hold of up in the air with a CB radio? Other truckers? So there are radio operators under the agency React.

8:22 React okay. And they monitor emergency CB channels and relay distress calls to authorities. It's like breaker, breaker. One nine I'm in trouble here Exactly. I'm flying through a serious, serious cloud wait, sorry, serious clap, such a dork. Okay, so he also had plastic water jugs as ballasts sure, kind of like like what they have the weights on like a hot air balloon. Yes, yes, exactly so he would dump the water and lighten the load if needed. Yeah right, he had sandwiches for snacking so I suppose he could probably pee in them to make them heavier and go down right. And they had snacks. What?

9:06 no, no, I mean, I'm not wrong nothing was mentioned in my research I didn't even want to ask the question he had two liters of coca-cola and he had a six pack of beer you've watched. I think you've said you've watched super troopers once, right yes it's just like farva ordering a liter of cola. That's just brought that to mind. So sorry, I'll have to show you a clip To the clip, sorry. He also brought a BB pellet gun to shoot at the balloons. To pop them if necessary. Well, for when he wanted to descend. Right and or birds Sure. I mean, could be a seagull flying to your face?

9:49 I mean, you never know. That'd be bad. So Walter's plan was to float lazily up a few dozen feet and then drift northeast over the mojave desert before using the pelican to pop balloons and come down right that didn't happen I can't believe it didn't go according to plan with what he's doing yeah, that is so scientific super surprising, because it sounds foolproof. It really is. He put a lot of thought into this. I mean he had an altimeter and everything. so Shush On July 2nd, yes, 1982. Ooh. Walters cut the cord anchoring Inspiration 1, and it shot up like a rocket.

10:32 Do you think he's like carol, I'm going up he had hoped to hover at about 30 feet altitude. Altitude he probably looked at the altimeter for that so what it is? what is it again? Altimeter altimeter okay, but he didn't quite go 30 feet oh and he had how many balloons? was it eight or no? No, no, it was more right oh no, there was 45 that seems like they were eight foot each eight foot. That's where I was mixing the number up in my brain. Yeah, 45. How did he attach 45 eight foot weather balloons to a lawn chair?

11:16 From sears even if it was from the softer side of sears, that's not a very small. I mean, I don't know what their weight capacity is per a balloon yeah I'm curious to see how much he he weighed, how much he was a smaller guy, was he? Yeah, clearly. I mean he was in the 80s, so everybody was pretty much smaller. I was smaller in 1982. Yeah, me too, I wasn't born yet. I was also two and a half at this time. A little over, but either way. So from the ground, Larry's girlfriend pleaded with him over the two-way radio to start popping balloons and come back Because pleaded with him over the 2A radio to start popping balloons and come back, because he was getting a little bit farther than 30 feet, right?

11:59 Come in, Larry. This is Carol. You're going too fast. You're going too fast, too far. I'm losing sight. I see your shoe. But Larry says, quote I wasn't going to hassle with her because no way in heck, you know, after all this, my life, the money we'd sunk into this thing to just come down. No way in heck, I was just going to have, just going to have a good time up there. End quote. Oh, my word, okay. So he didn't make it to 30 feet, he didn't make it to a hundred feet, he didn't make it to a thousand feet, he went 16,000 feet feet high how is he breathing? well, it's got a little chilly up there for me and and the, the oxygen level at 16 000 feet can't be as good as it is at 30 feet.

12:48 I mean, I've been up a 14 000 plus foot mountain and it gets a little rough yeah. He's about three miles high. Yeah. Yeah. So Walter said that he was astonished by how quickly he shot up into the clouds. Again 45, eight foot balloons. Up at that altitude, lacking oxygen, kind of feeling the bitter cold up there, he found himself both exhilarated but also a bit terrified. Well, he wasn't even seat belted in, so oh, and guess what? He lost his eyeglasses oh, did he just go up too fast that they just fell off, or did he look down and be? like shit. He probably just looked down. Uh, yeah, I would think so so strong winds blew him into the approach path of the Long Beach Los Angeles International Airport area, right into controlled airspace.

13:41 Oh dear. He drifted over Southern California and Walters used a CB radio to call for help, admitting to a monitoring citizen band group react that quote. This was an unauthorized balloon launch end quote. And he knew he was in federal airspace jesus christ air traffic controllers were already aware of something odd I'm sure they were because two airline pilots saw him, saw him and they probably read him. We're seeing something funny out the window here. Yeah, LAX, there's something that I can't quite describe ahead of me.

14:22 There's a UFO, I mean it's unidentified, I mean it is. So yeah, we might need to send out somebody so the pilot of a passing twa airliner radioed the tower to report a man in a long chair floating at 16 000 feet holding a pistol in his hands. Oh my word, because that far you can't tell it was just a bb gun but fuck? no, not at all and the tower. Initially thought it was a joke, but of course radar was like nope, there's an object right there. Looks like a Larry to me. Is that Larry? again, Shit Larry. Walter spent between 90 minutes to two hours in the sky.

15:04 Wow, that's impressive. So eventually he started working up the nerve to start his descent. So he used his pellet gun to shoot out a few balloons probably about seven of them. Used his pellet gun to shoot out a few balloons probably about seven of them. Okay, um, and he was pretty careful not to like unbalance his quote-unquote aircraft, well yeah, his launcher so he did begin to sink slowly. Okay, um, but then walters, not having planned this very well, yeah dropped something very important his bb gun, his bb gun I feel like he should have had that I don't know strapped in, tethered to the lawn chair and or himself and that's exactly what he said oh, well, see, look at go larry, we think alike yes okay so describing his dilemma over the radio walter's joke that he was in trouble.

15:52 one way or another, He'd either eventually plummet, get sucked into a jet engine or get busted when he finally landed. Well, I feel like he already called it in and other people saw it, so I feel like he's getting busted anyways. So later the Federal Aviation Association, the FAA, estimated that if Larry had not popped these seven balloons before losing his gun, he would have ascended to 50,000 feet and been a popsicle. How did they guess that? I guess Because wasn't he kind of like steady at that for a while? I would imagine so. Of course, it didn't say that he shot up to 16,000 feet.

16:33 But, over the course of this 90 minutes to two hours he got up to 16. That's how far he got. Okay, sure, that's what I would imagine. I suppose he would just keep going, yeah, so okay, yeah, yeah. Wow. So with no pellet gun, walters had to improvise. Did he have a knife with him or anything? Start cutting them loose. Well, not exactly, but he did start removing the water from the water jugs, the ballasts, why would you want to remove the water? Wouldn't that make it lighter? Yeah, why would that work? Because you'd want to add weight, not remove weight. Yeah, it literally says in my research that he poured water out from his jugs to lighten the chair's weight.

17:14 Yeah, it literally says in my research that they would that he poured water out from his jugs to lighten the chair's weight. Yeah, because that's what it would do, but then it would make you go up. Well now I'm confused. Okay, mark the time, because I'm going to look this up real quick. Okay, I've got an answer, Okay. And we're back. So this was not in my immediate research. If you remove water from the ballast, you would be making like a horizontal change. Okay. So he was probably moving towards the ocean at this point. Yeah. And so dumping some of the ballast would have pushed him back horizontally over, oh Over ground.

17:59 I guess that Okay. And then with the balloons that were popped, it would just be a really slow, gradual descent. Right, you'd be dropping on the altimeter. Would you? Sorry, no, but that's excellent. I'm glad you asked that because, yeah, that didn't make sense to me. Me either. So okay. So Inspiration One did start to lose altitude and he drifted for several miles and he got to the point of being about 30 feet above ground. Oh, I feel like you could jump from there. Yeah, he was. It's only three stories. He was flying over houses, essentially.

18:41 Oh, sure, yeah. And he ended up dangled in a bunch of cables power line cables it's probably gonna hit some power lines there, but yeah, sure did okay and, of course, it caused a power outage in the area for about 20 minutes I'm not surprised. I'd be shocked if it didn't so larry says, quote the chair went over this guy's house and I nestled into these power lines, hanging about eight feet under the bottom strand. If I'd come in a little higher, the chair would have hit the wires and I could have been electrocuted, I could have been dead, and Lord knows what else. Lord knows what else. What else would there be besides death? I mean OK, all right, besides death.

19:24 I mean okay, all right. Well, I mean I'm not surprised, uh, that he hit some power lines especially if he's you know traveling at 30 feet, so how far away was he from his home at this point? I don't know, I didn't, I didn't read that, that's all right um, okay, so larry also continued quote. It's ironic because the guy that owned the house he was out reading his morning people on a chaise lounge next to his swimming pool and you know just the look on the guy's face, like he hears the noise as I scraped across his roof and he looked up and he sees this pair of boots and a chair floating right over him under the power lines. Right, he sat there mesmerized just looking at me.

20:05 After about 15 seconds he got out of his chair. He said, hey, do you need any help? And guess what? it turns out he was a pilot an airline pilot on his day off end quote wow what are the chances that he lands in an airline pilot's backyard? I was going to suggest because you said he pooled and like he should have looked for a pool and jumped into it or something. But so walters managed to climb down to the ground unharmed. Um few witnesses had gathered at this point I would imagine so he hadn't crashed, hadn't been fried by the power lines and he hadn't been sucked into a jet engine. So I would call that a success, right I mean yeah he was safe.

20:45 But he was promptly arrested. Well, once he was back on solid ground, I'm not surprised a swarm of local police who had been tracking the spectacle were on site to greet the fallen chair. Walters stepped off of inspiration one and into the custody of the long beach police department right and when reporters at the landing site pressed him for why he did such a thing, walters had the perfect deadpan one-liner ready. He said, quote a man can't just sit around. End quote. But that's all he was doing. I mean, I'm not wrong, right. So Walters? The authorities who arrested Walters didn't quite know what law he had broken.

21:31 yet but I'm sure they figured that out, yeah. Flying a lawn chair with balloons wasn't exactly in the aviation handbook In the books. Yeah, so one FAA safety inspector said at the time, quote we know he broke some part of the Federal Aviation Act and as soon as we decide what part it is, a charge will be filed end quote Jeez, that's funny. And one official said well, if he had a pilot's license we'd just yank that, but he doesn't have one. No, no, hopefully it didn't revoke his lawn chair privileges. That'd be terrible. So the faa cited walters for operating an aircraft in controlled airspace without establishing contact with air traffic control, so they slapped him with a four thousand dollar fine oh shit, which in today's money is thirteen thousand dollars.

22:20 Oh wow, walter appealed. I'm sure. He argued that Inspiration Moon was not technically an aircraft in the legal sense. It was a. Sears lawn chair with balloons. I mean it's not in the legal sense. He didn't endanger anyone. No injuries, no collisions, just a short blackout. Short blackout. It was a personal stunt, not commercial or a repeated violation, right. So the FAA reduced the penalty to $1,500 or $5,000 today. Okay, so more serious sounding charges like operating a craft without an airworthiness certificate were dropped.

23:00 A lawn chair couldn't really be classified in the usual categories, no, not so much. So, um, despite the legal reprimand, walters became like this little folk hero. He was on um the tonight show with johnny carson, the late night with david letterman wow, oh yeah. And he said being on letterman was the most fun he'd ever had. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, I mean apparently that beat him flying, I don't know I mean, I guess, because he did it legally he also got the infamous darwin award what is that? So it's an award for people who do the most stupid things.

23:48 Oh, yeah, kind of like the Razzie Awards or something. Sure, yeah, that makes sense. So Larry himself remained humble about all the attention. He said that I didn't think that by fulfilling my goal in life, my dream that I would make people laugh and create such a stir Wow. So for a brief time Larry rode this wave of fame. He tried to become a motivational speaker. Oh geez, audiences were curious for a while, but it just never kind of panned out into something more than that. Yeah, it didn't really catch on there. It was just like the 50 minutes of fame type thing yeah, and then it just fizzled out because people moved on to something else that they didn't care about so one regrettable decision walters made was in the aftermath um.

24:36 A young neighborhood boy named jerry was inspired by inspiration one 1. Oh dear. So, Walters, in the excitement after the flight, he gave the chair to the boy. Not a big deal, it's just like here have this. Yeah, but did he try it himself then? Well, no, but years later, the Smithsonian Institution. Wanted it Wanted the chair. Oh wow, I know. And Walters was like, oh crap, I don't have it anymore. But Jerry, decades later, decades later, Jerry, who still had the chair, contacted a historian and eventually donated Larry's original lawn chair to the National Air and Space Museum.

25:22 That's funny, mm-hmm. Wow. So today it is on display. Wow, yes, any of the balloons with it or no, just the chair. I think they like faked balloons. But yeah, I'm sure they did but like the ballasts are still there and everything like that what color was the chair? I don't know, the pictures that I've seen are mostly black and white, right, but yeah, I'd have to look that up? No, that's okay. I was just curious if you knew yeah. So he did end up dying at 44 years old. That early. Yeah. Wow, it's a little depressing how. Oh. Yeah, how. Tell me later he committed death.

26:03 Why, I don't know. I think he was. He just got really depressed. I think he he realized his dream a little bit too soon in life, maybe that's so. How old was he when he did this? I don't remember he died in 1993, and this took place in 82, so he was 33 when he did this, wow yeah, so um, this actually became an extreme sport, so they called it cluster ballooning. So, um, there were a couple other people after him who to try to do this. Um, most notably a guy named kent couch. He was an oregon gas station owner and he was famous for launching lawn chair balloon voyages in the 2000s.

26:50 Oh wow, in one flight he traveled 240 miles using 105 balloons with a phoebe gun. Okay and crouch, or, excuse me, couch did um repeat the stunt multiple times. Wow, never. Never heard of that. Yeah, so that is the story of Lawn Chair Larry. You almost said Cherry again. Lawn Cherry Larry. That's funny. Well, I mean wait for him to have some ambition. Unfortunately, sorry to hear about how it ended, but at least he was able to see his Inspiration. 1 rise to the occasion. So, well, I suppose, all right, buffoons, that's it for today's episode.

27:33 Buckle up, because we've got another historical adventure waiting for you. Next time Feeling hungry for more buffoonery, or maybe you have a burning question or a wild historical theory for us to explore. Hit us up on social media. We're History Buffoons Podcast on YouTube X, instagram and Facebook. You can also email us at historybuffoonspodcast at gmailcom. We are Bradley and Kate. Music by Corey Akers. Follow us wherever you get your podcasts and turn those notifications on to stay in the loop. Until next time, stay curious and don't forget to rate and review us. Remember, the buffoonery never stops.