Paper Lanterns

When Jake was of Doctor Seuss bed-time book age, one of his favorite stories was "Tubby and the Lantern".  The story was of a Chinese boy and his pet elephant and how they accidentally flew off into the night sky on a giant paper lantern.  As children's literature goes, the book one of my favorites.  The plot was a little implausible but the characters were much stronger than the ones in "Green Eggs and Ham" or "Go Dog Go".

Anyway, one night Theresa was looking out the apartment window and saw a strange light in the sky above the lake.  We argued for about 5 minutes as to whether it was a plane or a helicopter or a star or a UFO.  Then another appeared.  We argued some more.  With time, both lights disappeared.

A few nights later we discovered the answer when we went down to the lakefront for dinner.   When coming home we found vendors selling baubles to the evening crowd, much like the vendors you find outside of U.S. amusement parks at closing time.  They were selling light sabres and glow-in-the-dark necklaces and whirlybirds and such.  Then we saw one selling paper lanterns.

And now most nights, we make it a point to look out at around 9:00 in the evening.  It is not unusual on the week-ends to see 4 or 5 lanterns at a time in the sky, rising up from the lake front and floating on the breeze. The sight brings back warm memories of reading the Tubby story in cozy beds to small children - our children who are long since adults.  

We've not yet seen any elephants hanging on to the lanterns.  We'll keep looking.