Inside all of us is a balloon boy.
Once in awhile America is united over an event that touches people’s hearts. Balloon Boy took people on a noble and frightening journey last week, but upon the balloon’s final destination the proverbial air went out, and the world was left in complete shock.
It was the perfect time in the nation’s psyche for such a tale, as the country hotly anticipated the release of children’s-book-turned movie “Where the Wild Things Are.”
As Falcon Heene supposedly ascended 7,000 feet in the air over Fort Collins, Col., along with him went everyone’s inner child and the yearning to join him.
Soon everything would come out when CNN’s Wolf Blitzer interviewed the family last Thursday and the little boy was asked why he didn’t come out of hiding when he heard his family call him. “You guys said we did this for the show,” said the boy to his father, and the hoax was revealed. Even Blitzer didn’t seem to want to believe it as he barely acknowledged the boy’s response. But the backlash soon followed.
There were some early sleuths who had already put the logistics together and guessed it was a farce, and simply for the heartless ones who didn’t care about a boy in a balloon.
But for the others, it was all over after the interview and the media turned on the once-beloved Heene family. Questions abounded whether the whole ordeal was a scam cooked up by the boy’s fame-hungry (and let’s say it, very odd) parents.
Father Richard Heene did one of the most annoying things the media can deal with Saturday when he made them submit their questions ahead of time. It was an ironic moment to see the father, who once welcomed the media into his family, transitioning from enjoying the limelight to squirming in the hot seat.
The little boy would have been a hero, making his way through the talk show circuits and spending his 15 minutes of fame at age 6 like an early Amelia Earhart. Unfortunately I believe he has peaked after the incident, so to speak.
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