There was something unusual in the skies over Danville last week. No, it wasn’t an asteroid. (See my earlier blog entitled “Panic in Peru” for more on that particular topic.) Actually, it was the Goodyear blimp. That famous aerial icon was in town for a few days, moored at Danville Regional Airport part of the time and intermittently appearing over the skies of our 
city at other times. Obviously, the big balloon was here in Danville because of the local Goodyear plant, but also in preparation for the big Subway 500 race in Martinsville on Sunday. I saw the blimp several times throughout the week while driving around the city—one time over the historic homes and churches on Main Street, and then later along the river just above the vacant Dan River Mills building that recently lost its historic signage. (I had my camera in the car so I took a couple of quick snapshots.)
city at other times. Obviously, the big balloon was here in Danville because of the local Goodyear plant, but also in preparation for the big Subway 500 race in Martinsville on Sunday. I saw the blimp several times throughout the week while driving around the city—one time over the historic homes and churches on Main Street, and then later along the river just above the vacant Dan River Mills building that recently lost its historic signage. (I had my camera in the car so I took a couple of quick snapshots.) 
Then on Saturday, around noon—as Sandy and I were preparing for our third open house in succession—I heard this strange but intense buzzing noise that seemed to be coming from overhead. I was upstairs at the time. I knew the unfamiliar sound wasn’t a train passing by or an excessively loud tractor trailer rig on Highway 58. Sandy, downstairs, heard the sound as well. She thought it sounded like an old vintage World War I era biplane. I came downstairs and we both looked out our back window and there it was overhead—the Goodyear blimp, up close and personal. It was making its way westward along Highway 58 toward Martinsville for the big race. I didn’t have my camera near me this time, so I didn’t get a shot of it over our house, but it was an interesting spectacle to behold.These recent blimp sightings brought back some memories. The sound of the blimp flying by our house reminded me of a story grandmother once told me about the first airplane that flew over Whitley County, Kentucky—the area where Sandy & I were raised. It was early in the 20th century when airplanes were still very new, and no one in that remote mountain area had ever seen one before. Many of the local residents were terrified. They thought it was the end of the world. Some thought the Lord was coming back. Perhaps if I had never ever seen anything up in the sky before, I might have thought the same thing this past Saturday!
My recent close encounter with the Goodyear blimp also reminded me of the fact that our daughter-in-law, Melinda, once worked for the Lightship Group, as assistant to the operations manager in their North American office in Orlando. An international company, Lightships, Inc.,
is the largest owner of commercial blimps in the world. In fact, most all of the blimps you see at sporting events—other than Goodyear (the granddaddy of them all, which obviously has its own fleet)—belong to Lightships, Inc. You know, MetLife, Monster.com, Saturn, etc.—all of these are Lightship-owned & operated blimps, which are leased by these companies for advertising purposes (i.e., kind of like flying billboards.) Melinda used to help coordinate the travel arrangements for Lightship crews all around the world. She even got to fly in a blimp at least once. (Unfortunately, she never was able to get Jordan, Sandy or myself on one.)Then, I think back years earlier to when I was pastoring a rural church in Chowan County, North Carolina (in the northeastern part of the Tar Heel state). We were not too far from Elizabeth City, the site of a former World War II naval air base and blimp hanger that had become home to an airship manufacturing facility. Thus, there was a lot of airship activity in that area. When Jordan was a little boy, we periodically would see the MetLife blimp (as well as others) flying over our church parsonage. Little did we know that some 15 years later Jordan would one day be married to a young woman who worked for the company that would deploy those MetLife blimps to different places around the world.
Of course, when I think of blimps I, like many people, think of the most infamous blimp of all—the German airship Hindenberg—which wound
up being kind of like an aerial version of the Titanic. This massive zeppelin was the pride of Nazi Germany, a seemingly great achievement in the history of commercial air travel. But then on May 16, 1937, it literally all went up in flames, following an explosion over the airfield at Lakehurst, N.J. One of the greatest air disasters of all time, the Hindenberg crash basically spelled the end for airships as a means of commercial travel.By the way, speaking of blimps, when I pastored in Florida, there was this guy that worked for the Florida Baptist Convention. His nickname was “Blimp” Davis. (Please don’t get any ideas about calling me that. I would be highly offended.) “Blimp” isn’t the kind of nickname you would think anyone would want to acquire or perpetuate. But this guy signed his name as “Blimp” Davis all the time. To me, however, the nickname “Blimp” just conjures up some uncomplimentary images of the person. Kind of like referring to a person as “portly”, implying that their circumference stretches from shore to shore! Anyway, this guy named “Blimp” wasn’t really a blimp in appearance, so I don’t know where his name came from. But seeing the Goodyear blimp this week made me think of him. And it also made me grateful that I never was tagged with a nickname like that…at least not yet.
OK, it’s time to get my head out of the clouds and wrap up this rather air-headed blog. This is enough reflecting on blimps for one day. I think I’ll take a break from all of this blimpology and go have a Slimfast for lunch.
Pastor Danny
