This morning a neighbor on China Street announced immediate plans for an extraordinary journey. As a long-time resident of ‘the Hill’, Larry is affectionally known as an Oregon Hill ‘old-timer’, who has regaled many people with his stories of growing up in the neighborhood. But it’s his latest adventure that is creating excitement.

After repairing the front porch on his small, Victorian, Italianate railroad cottage, Larry realized that it would take only so many helium balloons to raise the entire structure off its anchors and fly into the air. For the last few years he has been buying balloons and helium and secretly storing them at his brother’s house around the corner. Well, today is the day according to Larry. He plans the lift-off later this very afternoon. By doing so, Larry hopes to sail his aloft house across America and rediscover the world, while at the same time bringing a little bit of Oregon Hill to the world.

In many ways, this is nothing new for the bespectacled, elderly man, who has always had something of a free spirit. Larry remembers hunting rabbit with a .22 on Belle Island as a boy, back when Richmond’s James River was largely abandoned either as an industrial wasteland or a relatively remote Land of the Lost. Larry also enjoyed playing volley ball and baseball as a youth in what he refers to as a simpler time for the City. Today, he looks forward to more travel.

While not being too specific on his inspiration for the scheduled launching of his one hundred year old house by balloon, Larry does mention previous famed aviators like Walters and Couch. As for a certain upcoming summer children’s movie by a certain cartoon mouse company, Larry says he will contact lawyers after he is back on the ground. But that might be a while since he has no planned ETA, or destination for that matter.

Update: Larry has postponed lift-off due to the rainy weather.