A MacGyver tribute to Ed Haney

Mary-Kate, Dave and Logan

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Mary-Kate:

One year ago, Dad died. Hard to believe that much time has gone by so quickly. Thanks to Jan for the wish lanterns given to commemorate his birthday and, shortly after, the anniversary of his death. We here in California were not able to raise the lanterns on his birthday due to the weather but, on the 30th, it was decidedly different.

It was a beautiful day, warm for northern California and with little wind. I wanted to launch the lanterns from the beach. We went to Rodeo Beach near the Golden Gate Bridge. We arrived at the beach around 4:30 p.m. PST. We watched the sunset. It was incredibly beautiful.

Before we left home to head to the beach, I packed up all the items we needed for the event. Dave and Logan were totally on board with me, understanding the importance of the event. I grabbed my fireplace lighter and another hand-held lighter just in case. We brought the lanterns that Jan sent. I had read the instructions but, for some reason, did not understand that the light sources for the lanterns were actually included on the lanterns themselves. As we left our house that day, I grabbed a cardboard box that I thought contained the lighting sources for the lanterns. How fortuitous. Dad was watching me the whole time. I realized later that the cardboard box contained a candle Jan included as a Christmas gift for me. Dave brought his telescope to see Jupiter, which was another great prop in our tribute.

We got to the beach and the weather was fabulous. We watched an incredible sunset. I told Dave it was time to set the lanterns aloft. We tried to set the first one off at the lap of the water by the ocean’s edge but it was too windy. The first lantern quickly burned as a failure of effort. The lighting source took a long time to light and it proved to be a challenge. We decided to try a different approach for the second lantern.

Dave, being the wonderful scientist and beautiful mind that he is, said we needed a wind break. He was right. Again, our preparations were unknowingly fortuitous and I believe Dad was watching out for us to make it all work out for us.

We brought blankets. We found driftwood. I opened the box that Jan sent me and- believe it or not - it was a candle!!! The candle stayed lit behind the wind break and was able to light the fuel sources for the next lantern.

It worked!!! We were thrilled! It happened so fast and we captured as much as we could on video and in pictures on our iPhones.

We did it again and, this time, it was even better. People on the beach were watching us and asking what we were doing. They thought it was a science experiment. I explained what I was doing. It was for Dad.

A young lady came up to me, asked me why I was doing what I was doing. I told her - my Dad did a year ago today. She said her mom died a year ago on the 27th. What we did for Dad mattered to her. It was a beautiful and emotional day. The balloons over the ocean. How lucky am I?

Dave's notes

It was a scintillating, crystal clear day- it had rained the day before. We get about 5 of these a year- so clear and crisp that you can see the burnt orange color of the Golden Gate Bridge from our house, 10 miles away across the bay. I went for a bike ride earlier, and noticed that we also had almost no wind, and was hoping that the conditions would hold as we headed out for the coast.

When I was a kid, I made hot air balloons from kits from Edmund Scientific. It had been about 35 years, and these were also tissue paper balloons, 6 to 9 feet high. I didn’t expect my “experience” with these would come into play. As we drove up the hills over the Marin Headlands to the beach, the weather was indeed holding- the view of San Francisco to the south was incredible, and the coastal road was jammed with tourists getting in a great view. We continued on to the beach.

When we got there, there was a very light wind, a few dozen people set up to watch the sunset, so we set up, I played around with the telescope I’d brought. First time I’d brought a decent sized scope to the beach there, but it was so clear and the winds were light so I didn’t worry about getting any sea spray on the optics. I looked out to the western horizon, and it was so clear I could see the waves moving all the way to what had always appeared as the unmoving line of the horizon. Beautiful.

We watched the sunset, then got going on the wish lanterns. Kate wanted to do it right down by the water, and we soon found that even a gentle breeze presents a challenge. I remembered this from my “old” hot air balloon days, and told Kate and Logan to stand together for a windbreak. Despite this, the light breeze was enough to flummox our efforts, and the first lantern crashed and burned, literally.

We were sunk, I thought for a moment- there was no way we were going to get better weather than this for a long time. Maybe we could go up against the hills to the south, a hundred yards away, at the end of the beach? I thought of the big piece of driftwood I had seen a guy use when we first got to the beach, and we had blankets, and the telescope, so...

Dig a hole in the sand. Stuff the end of the driftwood in it, like a fence post. Drape the blanket between the telescope and the driftwood. We could even tuck the bottom of the blanket into the sand and put sand on it to seal the bottom of our Rube Goldberg wind block!

It worked. It took both the candle (thank you Janice!) and several minutes for things to get cooking and the lantern to fill up with hot air. When we let it go, it took off in a hurry. It looked like it got up about 500 meters in the air and stayed lit for about 4 minutes, and we could follow it for a couple more. The second one did as well (see video).

The failure of the first lantern launch made the other two seem even sweeter. Folks came by to ask what we were doing, and we told them of Ed.

It was a beautiful evening, and we went out to dinner afterwards, looking at the pictures and the video that Logan shot. We were thrilled to be able to do it and think of Ed. He isn't dead as long as we remember him.

Logan's...

December 30, 2012. What a day that was.

It was the 1 year anniversary of my grandfather’s unfortunate death. As a remembrance of this, my Aunt Janice sent out a package of WishLanterns to Arizona, New Jersey, and California to be lit on Christmas Eve, Grandpa’s birthday. We couldn’t do that, but we managed to launch them on December 30th. It was a series of surprising coincidences.

At 3:30 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, Mom, Dad, and I piled into the car to go to Stinson Beach, by the Golden Gate and the Marin Headlands. We decided to bring our beach blankets, even though we had a sleeping bag in the back from our Yosemite trip earlier. We brought Dad’s 6-inch telescope, a fireplace lighter, a Bic lighter, and, although we didn’t know it, a candle that Aunt Jan had put in the package she sent us.

We set off, and had a fairly uneventful trip. We listened to Says You on NPR, and had a grand old time listening to the comedians and famous people respond to the questions and try their hand at bluffing. Dad also tried to answer the questions, and I told him “They can’t hear you, it doesn’t count!” multiple times, but I was laughing too. As we got closer to the beach, we noticed a cargo ship out by the beach, and I thought “What an eyesore! It’ll ruin the view!” despite the fact that it really didn’t block anything but ocean and ocean.

When we got there, I decided to walk down near the waves, but not get wet. The Pacific at San Francisco carries the good old Alaskan current, bringing absolutely freezing water into the Bay. After a few minutes, Mom came down. We talked for a bit, and Mom told me Dad wanted to take some pictures of us watching the waves and sunset, which took all the magic out of the moment, because he also yelled at us to adjust our positions, like this was a professional photo shoot, but I didn’t complain.

After the sun set, we broke out the lanterns. Mom said she wanted to light them by the water, but the sea breeze picked as we tried to light the first one. Dad told us to make a windbreak with our bodies, but it didn’t work. The first lantern collapsed onto the sand, and the flame we started on the lighting source attacked the paper that made up the balloon, and left a hideous burn mark when we put it out.

We retreated back up to our base, where Dad formulated a new plan. He had seen a stranger playing with a piece of driftwood that looked like the letter Y with way too many growth supplements, and decided that would be useful. He took it, and stabbed it into the ground, but it wasn’t stuck in there. He dug a hole, then tried again. Still unsuccessful. He then shoved it in, split end down. That worked out fine. He put the telescope about 3 feet away, and draped the blanket over them. A perfect windbreaker.

The lighters had proven to not work, so Mom took out the candle. After about two minutes, the fire filled up the balloon enough to make it fly. It went in a loose boomerang shape, eventually dying out over the water, and fell, presumably to its briny demise.

I had promised Mom that I would videotape the flight of one of them, so I whipped out my phone and started filming. After another 2 minute time period, the third lantern began to fly, and soared off into the sky. We all watched it go with grins on our faces. Other people noticed it, and came over to ask about the event. One woman came up while I was filling, and asked what the occasion was. I told her that it was because Mom’s dad died last year. Mom heard, this and offered to take over filming duties so she could talk about it. The lantern flew longer, because Dad, the genius he is, put extra wax on the paper to be lighted, and it might have landed on land, in the water, but we’ll never know. Just like the mystery of the Tootsie Pop.