The Balloon that never got to Oz

Some balloons get there, some don't.

Pat McLarkey, even when a 17-year old, knew that you shouldn't put up a balloon in a heavy wind. ( This is told in Balloon to Oz, by Leo Moser and Carol Nelson. copyright 2012. )
That was well before Pat sailed of to Oz, eventually to become the (humbug) Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  

Of course there are other stories:
Here is a recent  scene in Central Park:

Eventually this star-crossed balloon ended up impaled on a nearby fountain!

http://mix1051.cbslocal.com/2013/03/05/oz-balloon-mishap-in-nycs-central-park/

http://www.buzzfeed.com/hunterschwarz/heavy-winds-blow-oz-promotional-balloon-into-central-park-fo

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Now when our Pat sailed off (no fault of his own) he was almost impaled when landing, by the spire atop the Jade Palace in the Emerald City. 

But Pat's balloon had traveled not a few feet, but for several days and to Erdavon, an alternate world of which Oz was but a part. 

The Overview of Pat McLarkey and his Years in Oz.

This is a blog introducing 

Balloon to Oz: Pinhead to Potentate  

the second book in the series: 

THE HIDDEN CHRONICLES OF OZ

by Leo Moser and Carol Nelson

(This series of stories follows the famous book of L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published in 1900.)

Let us begin, not in Kansas in 1900 

 nor in Omaha, Nebraska many years earlier, but in. . .

 San Francisco, California in 1973

     Eight-year-old Jeremy smiled at his great-grandmother across the breakfast table, “The way you tell about Oz, Gran-gran, makes lots more sense to me. More’n the Judy Garland movie, more’n some of the later books by that Mr. Baum.” 

     “Not all is exactly how I tell it,” Dorothy responded. “Remember the book I read you this weekend was written by Pat McLarkey, the so-called Wonderful Wizard himself, telling how he got to Oz. Balloon to Oz: Pinhead to Potentate was the title he put on it.”

     “I’ve read all the old Oz books, you know. Some stuff is hard to figure.  In one book the Wizard says he invented the word ‘OZ,’ an’ that he even had the Emerald City built. That just doesn’t track. An’ he supposedly had all those extra initials that added up to P.I.N.H.E.A.D. People don’t have that many names.”  

     “Things get mixed up when retold. Mr. Baum never went to Oz himself.”

     “Not like you, Gran-gran,” he grinned. “I'm not complaining. I like it just fine when you tell all your Oz stories just like you were the real Dorothy, ‘cuz your name was Dorothy then, an’ you lived on a farm in Kansas way back then. Like her second trip to Oz to find that tintype. Your second trip I mean.” He grinned again.

     “Even though I’m in my eighties, my name is still Dorothy, you know. And my maiden name was Gayle. Mr. Baum misspelled it, made it Gale, guess he thought of the wind that carried me off to Oz. But you don’t have to accept my stories as fact just now. Listen to them and remember. There are signs you may need this knowledge later on.”

     “You sure make it all seem mysterious, Gran-gran. But I like mysteries.”

     “Guess Mom will be back when I get home from school. Wish she wasn’t gone so much, but you’re our best baby sitter of all, Gran-gran. I’m learning lots about Oz from your stories, about the real Oz I mean.” He smiled.

     “Yes, what really happened, so very long ago,” Dorothy said.

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 NOTE:

Introductory chapters of this book follow the text of the e-book version of the first book in the series The Mysterious Tintype of Oz.

Available at Barnes & Noble, etc. etc

www.barnesandnoble.com/