Looking upon my last Veishea as an Iowa State student, I have been thinking back to my first glimpse at Veishea as a freshman. It was a wild weekend, complete with friends from home, crowded fraternity parties and of course the parade on Saturday.

When I heard my sorority was going to sponsor a giant balloon for the Veishea parade, I thought it sounded like great fun. The looming figures of Garfield or Snoopy in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade filled my head as I signed up to help anchor the balloon.

But I didn’t remember from TV how the tiny people below the balloon struggled furiously to keep the bobbing masses of plastic and helium from hitting power lines and parade watchers. I became one of those people on the Saturday morning of Veishea 1994 when we met to inflate the balloon.

We chose to carry a Dino balloon, thinking it was cool that we could have a balloon character from the cartoons of our childhood. Unfortunately, the balloon itself must have been from our childhood, because as soon as it was inflated, it sprung a leak.

Now, the balloon lady told us not to worry, that Dino would come out of it in fine shape. She instructed us to hold the balloon absolutely still, with Dino’s head smashed against the ground, as she hot glue-gunned a patch of repair plastic to the injury.

On a normal day, it might have been only slightly difficult to hold the gigantic balloon absolutely still. But on this particular day, with winds blowing at 30 miles per hour, it was impossible to hold Dino steady. As we strained, using our body weight to anchor the balloon, we could still feel Dino’s massive purple body swaying in the wind.

The balloon lady added to our frustration by yelling that we were not holding the balloon still enough. She said if she couldn’t fix the hole, Dino would not march in the parade and we would not get a refund. At that point I wanted to let go of the rope and let Dino fly into the atmosphere far away from the evil balloon lady. But I held on.

Finally, Dino’s injury was patched and we took our place between the Ames High marching band and a troupe of clowns with lawn chairs. The crowd lining the parade route seemed to love Dino. Kids and adults alike smiled as the purple dinosaur rounded the corner and came bounding down the street. For once, sun was shining on the Veishea parade and all was well — at least for a few minutes.

Suddenly, we came to an abrupt halt on the street beside Parks Library. We didn’t know what was causing the holdup, but we held onto the tow ropes and watched little kids come up and tentatively touch Dino’s leg before running back to their parents. Then we heard that one of the floats up ahead had caught fire.

We thought this delay would just mean we had to hold onto the balloon longer. Little did we know there were bigger troubles in store for our friend Dino. After a few minutes we heard the siren of a fire truck coming behind us on the parade route. Parade officials came by in their golf carts and told us to pull Dino to the side of the street so the fire truck could get by.

This was easier said than done. As we struggled to pull Dino over to the library side of the street, we could see little kids’ eyes widen in fear. It was like “Ghostbusters” when the Stay-Puft marshmallow man bobs down the street scaring crowds of people with his menacing grin.

Dino’s large body moved toward the crowd, and we could see parents motioning for us to move the balloon away before we suffocated their children. On the other side of the street, the parade officials were yelling that there still wasn’t enough room. As we heard the fire truck coming up behind us, we moved closer to the crowd.

With lights flashing and siren blaring, the fire truck pushed its way down the street. The truck cruised past Dino without slowing to ease by his plastic body. Suddenly from underneath the balloon, we heard a rip followed by a hiss. We looked up and noticed Dino’s left leg was beginning to shrivel. In a matter of seconds, the purple leg got smaller and smaller until it was just a piece of gimpy plastic dragging from Dino’s still-inflated body.

We looked with horror at our balloon. Dino’s tongue lolled happily from his mouth and the right side of his body was intact, but he looked like a disfigured monster with only one leg. It seemed as if the crowd didn’t know if it should laugh or cry at Dino’s humiliation.

At yells from the parade officials, we started walking again. As we tugged the maimed Dino toward Beardshear, where the float judges and bulk of the crowd sat, we heard people laughing at our balloon. We kept our eyes on the pavement passing underneath us and walked on to the end of the parade route.

The angry balloon lady was waiting for us. At this point, the last thing we wanted to do was take crap from Mistress of Plastic, so we hurriedly helped deflate the balloon and walked home.

The moral of this story is that I still had a blast at Veishea. I still had a great time eating junk food on Welch, and trying not to get caught with beer by my R.A. in Towers. Whatever Veishea activities you decide to participate in this weekend, Stars Over Veishea, Rock Da Rec or the bar scene, have a great time and drink one for balloon-holders everywhere.

---

Erin Walter is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Urbandale.