Back in 1984, I had been in Connecticut one year. I lived for a time in a small apartment in Bristol, back when ESPN was a small single building with a couple of satellite dishes outside. I worked at Superior Electric, a (then) thriving manufacturing plant with 1000 + employees. Today, ESPN is a juggernaut, looking more and more like a planetary defense base. And the former home of Superior Electric has been partitioned into an office park, with Superior moving it's few dozen employees to a more modest space in Farmington. Things change......
In that year of living alone, my social life consisted of drinks after work with coworkers, and racquetball. I've spent time in Bristol the last few years, and it's been interesting to note that the Downtown Cafe and the Brass Pony pub, both former haunts, remain pretty much unchanged. Some things don't change, I guess. It was not a great existence for a young adult, so when my lease ran out, I decided what I needed was to find a social network that did not involve coworkers. So I began to look for a roommate situation, and found a duplex in Southington that was looking for a roommate.
One of my new roommates was named Deb - not sure exactly what happened to her. She had a boyfriend who worked as a forestor in Durham, of all places. All I know is his involved a skidder, and for years I envisioned Durham as the Arkansas of CT, until I actually visited there. He had a large, scary german shephard named Satan, and when he was around they'd lay low in the bedroom with the dog. She moved out a year later; I heard they got married, perhaps they are living in the eastern part of the state. I suspect that got too suburban and they picked up and moved to Montana where he could harvest trees and she could make soap.
The other roommate was a young music teacher named Alison. She had a boyfriend named Robert, who I met during my interview for the place. He had a beat up blue toyota pickup, with a couple of aluminum tanks strapped to the back. I looked at the tanks with interest. "You a welder?" I queried. He laughed. Hot air balloon pilot.
Robert turned out to be huge Springsteen fan - so when I sat down at Alison's piano and banged out the intro to "Jungleland" and confessed to being a fan of the Boss myself, the deal was sealed. I was the new roommate.
In those early years, I got to know Robert slowly. HE was (and is) somewhat larger than life and a rebel marching to his own tune - scary to a then-conformist like myself. He would occasionally fly over the house, so in summer months with the windows open, I'd hear my name called out from above between the booming of the balloon burner, at 6:00 a.m. When I would occasionally have an overnight visitor, he'd call out both of our names, much to our embarrassment. And on a few occasions, I'd go watch him inflate the balloon, or even tag along for the chase. There are some old pictures from that era that would embarrass both Robert and me.....
The years unfolded. Soon thereafter, I met the person I was destined to marry, and within a few years I moved on - to a job in the Danbury area, and an apartment in that city. I got married. Robert and Alison got married. We drifted.
In the early 90's, though, I began to reconnect. My marriage had broken, and I was alone again, in a small cape in Waterbury. Robert and Alison had a few kids, and settled down in Cheshire where he built a barn for his balloon empire. So I started once again to crew for him. I've been crewing pretty regularly ever since. And when they started to have their own marriage problems, I ended up staying more connected to Robert. A lot of bonding gets done before sunrise on a dewy field in the Farmington valley.
Last night, I went to the annual CT Lighter than Air Society winter dinner. We get together after the holidays, during the off season - to reconnect, celebrate, reminisce, and recognize. Mike Bollea won the "Long Jump" award for longest balloon flight within the state borders (57.6 miles, this year). Carlos Kebe won the "Sh*t Happens" award for an amusing (and abortive) inflation at the recent Frozen Buns rally. And I won the Judith Ushchak Crew Award, given in honor of a beloved and departed crew member. Mostly, I suspect I earned the award for hanging around for these 23 years.
My flush speaks to the couple of margarita's I consumed last evening. I did a lot of the behind the scene organization for the dinner: made a slide show for the cocktail hour, kept track of the reservations, put together the agenda and table cards, etc. So I deserved a drink or two, and I'm guessing my award was due partly in thanks for all the work on the banquet.
The white head of hair in the foreground of the picture belongs to Steve Ushchak, husband of the late Judith. When Judy passed away a few years ago, we all warned him: Steve, you have your hair and all your teeth. You own property. You're in good shape (Steve works a hay farm in Cheshire). You're a good catholic who goes to church daily. You are, quite frankly, a catch! He laughed and got embarassed, but a year or so later he shyly told us we were right. There were a lot of women courting him. He's brought the same woman to the dinner last night as he did last year - it's very sweet.
When I pulled the old gender switcheroo back in 2002-2003, it was right around the time that Judy was sick. So Steve was out of the loop for a year or so - we did not see much of him. We crewed together a some months after I had switched names and genders, and by then it was old news - nobody had thought to tell Steve. The chase that day was uneventful. Later, after the passengers had been toasted with champagne and fed fruit, cheese and crackers, and the balloonists had gathered for breakfast, I headed home. On the way back to pick up his car, I found out later, Steve asked Robert and another crew member about me.
"That Judy, she's really nice.....she reminds me a lot of that guy who used to chase for you.....is she his sister? Whatever happened to him anyways?"He took the news pretty well, for a 70 something devout catholic. He had some concerns at first on moral and religious grounds, and if there was some discomfort for a while, well, he got over it. Or maybe he forgot about ol' what's his name. Being 70-something will do that do you.....
It's an honor to have my name on the crew award given in his wife's honor. It's been over 23 years of balloon chasing fun for me. With any luck, 23 years from now I'll be the white-haired head sitting at the table at the annual dinner.
