Do you remember September 11, 2001? Where were you and what were you doing when you heard of an airplane flying into one of the Twin Towers in New York? … . And when another plane flew into the second tower? … . And when you learned these were part of an even larger attack on the USA.?
It was an attack that proved more deadly than the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor that thrust the USA into World War Two.
This infamous 9/11 assault was recently reawakened by the news that after almost 23 years, two of the men behind the attack are finally being sentenced for their crime. They will spend the rest of their lives in a high-security prison.
I remember September 11, 2001. My wife, Mary, and I saw a newscast of that first plane crashing into one of the Twin Towers while we were having breakfast at a motel near Charlotte, North Carolina. At that moment, no one there realized it was anything more than a horrible accident. We left the breakfast and the motel and drove on to Carowinds Amusement Park, none the wiser.
We arrived at Carowinds with our truckload of supplies and started setting up the stage you see in the top photograph above, along with other decorations scattered about the theme park. Our stage set became the main focus for Charlotte Pipe and Foundry’s celebration of their 100th anniversary. Later in the day, we learned that what we glimpsed on TV was part of a larger terrorist attack on buildings, lives, and morale in the USA.
At the time, there was the temptation for America to shut down, withdraw into cells of our own creation for protection, and start living imprisoned by fear of future attacks.
Mary and I were so pleased and proud of Charlotte Pipe owners for choosing to proceed with plans for their employees to gather, retell their great American story, and celebrate the American Dream that they had achieved as a family of workers over the previous one hundred years. Here is an excerpt from the “Thanksgiving Message 2001” delivered to the company employees at the stage event pictured above:
Seldom in history has one family of workers served so many, so well, for so long as have you, the employees of Charlotte Pipe. You have built a legacy of iron and plastic pipes and fittings that serve hundreds of thousands of families in their homes, workplaces, places of play, and houses of worship.
But you have also built a legacy more valuable than pipes and fittings and more lasting than iron and plastic. You have built a foundation of integrity and a commitment to service worthy of the best of men, the best of families, and the best of businesses. You have built a legacy that will positively influence the lives of all who come to know your story in the days, years, and centuries to come.
I believe that each of us now reading of their Great American Story might well aspire to have such things properly said of our lives, our service, our businesses, and our legacy. I believe we might all feel like singing along with Lee Greenwood (on the center stage projection screen in the photo at the top of this article): “I’m Proud to be an American where at least I know I’m free.”
Their story and celebration of the last one hundred years of their lives in America stands out in my mind as a powerful rebuttal to those who attack America.
The question for you and me becomes, “What have we done? What will we do In our private lives, in our business lives, and in our public lives to build a foundation of integrity and a commitment to service worthy of the best of men, the best of families, the best of businesses, and the best of nations? That is, after all, a plausible path to have individuals, families, businesses, and nations around the world seek to emulate us rather than annihilate us. And, just maybe, have no more Pearl Harbor or 9/11 attacks.
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The Balloon Story
Meanwhile, let me continue the story of what we (My wife, our crew of a few other balloon professionals, our four daughters, and I) contributed as balloon decorators and event planners to this event.
My wife, Mary Queen Rouse, and I started planning with Charlotte Pipe staff more than 18 months in advance.
(1) We planned the stage decorations, decorations for various sites around the park, and the balloon drop on the audience.
(2) Mary arranged for the marching band to perform. (You will see them in the photo [tall white hats] at the foot of the stage.)
(3) Mary arranged for Lee Greenwood to fly in and perform his song “Proud To Be An American.”/”God Bless The USA” (You will see a projection of him on the big screen over center stage along with one line from “Proud To Be An American.” (You can watch an official performance by Lee Greenwood of this moving song at Lee Greenwood – God Bless the USA (OFFICIAL) (youtube.com)
(4) I wrote the keynote speech for the company’s Chief Executive to give to the employees and special guests. (You can read the speech, its story, and its optional variations (a sentence, a paragraph, a page, in five minutes, and an outline for fifteen minutes) in a separate post at this link https://rouseings.com/writings/thanksgiving-message-2001/
Special challenges came with the job, but we developed innovative solutions. We created new tools and techniques that remain available and unique in the balloon decorating industry even twenty-three years later.
September is hot here in the southeastern United States, and this event was outdoors. The stage and the audience were under a roof, but the seating area had no walls. Other venues for decorations in the amusement park were outdoors with no roof. Time was limited for set up. ( I know. I know. That part is almost always true.) We decided to build all the stage decorations with foil balloons. Their durability allowed us to prepare most of the stage balloons ahead of time and have some assurance that they would survive the summer heat at the event. They filled up a forty-foot tractor-trailer truck.
The trick to using the foil balloons was assembling and holding them into a nine-foot anniversary cake, two ten-foot corporate logos, two 20-foot side walls, a 40-foot American flag, and a 60-foot “Thanks For A Hundred Years” banner. The solutions were new, custom versions of Rouse Matrix Systems TM (RMSTM) now sold under a new branding, realGRIDZTM (Rouse-Expand-And-LoadGRIDZTM)
While we already had many variations of Rouse-expand-and-load balloon grids, the standard ones were honeycomb (hexagon-shaped) openings sized for either latex balloons inflated to 4″ or 8″ in diameter. Now, we needed openings sized to accommodate foil balloons of 9″ or 18″ before inflation, and we needed to keep those slick metallic balloons in place. I had done a few smaller projects with Matrix in those sizes. I decided to upgrade them with wider straps on the matrix and coated them with extra adhesive before loading the balloons. We experimented with loading techniques. The foil balloons require more care when loading. We preloaded especially sized panels of foil balloons into the trailer. We used fans to circulate air through the trailer to minimize the chance of overheating the balloons and exploding them before traveling to the event. Despite some bumps along the way, it all worked out to what you see in the top photo above.
[You can learn more about the “Super Builder,” as we call the realGRIDZTM for 18″ round foil balloons, at https://gridz.link/SuperBuilder . We also have realGRIDZ for the 9″ foil balloons available from https://GRIDZstore.com but only as a special order item. As far as I know, these are the only balloon grids designed specifically for round foil balloons.]
We did use latex balloons for the balloon drop and venue decorations. We waited as late as possible to inflate the balloons. We also underinflated them to give them more strength and to allow for heat expansion. Those projects also worked out. “Thank Goodness!”
TELL YOUR STORY – ASK YOUR QUESTIONS
Use the “Leave A Reply” section below to tell your story about 9/11/2001 or to express your opinion about what happened and what we might best do on a personal or national level to prevent a recurrence.
Or, you could tell us about a balloon project you had that had special circumstances or conditions to overcome or that was especially successful in fulfilling the event’s goals.
Or maybe some other things or questions that “9/11/2001 – A Balloon Story” stirs in your memory or imagination.
I would love to hear from you, and I expect many others would as well.
Graham Rouse
Editor: ROUSEings.com
© GM Rouse 2024. All rights reserved.
