About 500 feet down the street from our house in the country was a general store that carried a little bit of everything. It was owned by a little old lady who must have been in her eighties. Along with merchandise that had probably been sitting on the shelf since the turn of the century was an antique glass display case that she had filled with boxes of all sorts of penny candy. I would go the store several times a week, either for a few items my step mom would need, or to blow the residue of my allowance on candy or whatever. Because there were very few children within walking distance of the store there was little turnover in the candy stock, so week after week there was no change in the line up of candy boxes.
One day I came in and it only took one glance to spot a new box in the case. To my utter delight it wasn't another brand of candy but a box of tubular airship balloons. I could hardly contain myself as I plunked down a quarter and she counted out 25 of the brightly colored rubber beauties for me. This was the first time in my life I had actually bought a brand new uninflated toy balloon.

I stuffed the balloons in my pants pocket then ran out of the store and went far up into the woods behind our house. Finding a log to sit on, I whipped out a balloon and blew it up. I still wasn't totally free of balloon fear so it took me awhile to get up enough nerve to inflate it all the way to the far end. I couldn't believe the tightly stretched neck end could contain the pressure required to stretch the last bit of rubber at the far end. Actually what I did was squeeze the air from the neck end to the far end and then add the additional air. The balloon had nice transparent rubber and was about three and a half inches in diameter and nearly fifteen inches long. After squeezing the balloon gently and making it squeak, rubbing the balloon on my bare arms, and smelling the scent of fresh rubber I let the air out of it and blew it up a second time. This time it got even bigger; about the same length but fatter around, especially at the neck end.

Hmmm, I thought. If it gets bigger each time you blow it up I wonder how big I can get it if I blow it up several times? I was so engrossed in deflating then inflating the poor balloon that I totally forgot I was deathly afraid of balloons popping in my face. After the third or forth inflation the balloon seemed to be getting softer but I didn't think that it was safe to make it any bigger. Finally when I was inflating it for maybe the tenth time, as I was putting my last planned breath of air in it, the balloon suddenly popped. It wasn't a super loud bang but it surprised me. I was left holding a short piece of the rubber neck. The balloon had split open down it's length leaving a nice rectangular sheet of super soft thin rubber. I took this home for later bed time use.

I played with a second balloon in a similar fashion, relishing the texture and feel of the stretched rubber as I squeaked it over portions of my body. I soon had given myself an erection which was fighting to escape through the fly of my jeans. I unzipped and allowed my tool to escape from it's confines into the warm summer afternoon air. I began stroking it with my rubber toy. Ohhhh, it felt so good. Soon I went to direct hands on while I pressed the sweet smelling rubber to my face. It didn't take long and I shot a load most of which splattered on the leg of my pants. I reached down and wiped it off with my hand which I then in turned wiped on the smooth trunk of a cherry tree that was within reach.

When things returned to normal size I stowed my tool and made my way home. I carefully hid my rubber treasure in the back of my upper bureau drawer under a pile of clothes. My balloons would be relatively safe there. Several years later I would have hundreds of nice large round balloons stashed in the same place. For most of the next two years though, the small penny airships would be the only balloons I had to play with. The rectangular sheets of rubber from the couple of balloons I had broken I placed between the pages of the "B" volume of my Book of Knowledge for safe keeping.

I checked the toy department of the five and dime store in town once a week but they didn't have any balloons for sale of any size. I don't think there was any place in town where you could even buy a toy balloon. I longed for the nice fat round ones dad and I had played with when I was younger that you could still get before the war; but I had to make do with the tubular penny balloons for the bulk of my balloon fun until I was fifteen years old.        Rev. Date 4/03.
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