有声英文阅读-梦想起飞，别一飞冲天……（在线收听）

Larry's Lawn Chair Ride 

Larry Walters’ boyhood dream was not an unusual one: He wanted to fly. What was unusual, though, was the way he fulfilled it. After finishing school, Larry joined the U.S. Air Force, but was rejected from pilot-training school because of poor eyesight. However, his dream remained. 

Larry, aged 33, was not a pilot, but a truck driver in Los Angeles. One day, while sitting outside in his lawn chair, Larry had his eureka moment. As he watched jets fly overhead, an idea came to him to use weather balloons to fly. 

A few weeks later, Larry bought 42 one-meter diameter weather balloons. He tied them to a lawn chair and filled them with helium. Then he sat down in the chair with some beer, sandwiches, and a BB gun. Larry’s plan was to float about 10 meters above his backyard, enjoy a few hours in the air, and then pop some balloons with his gun to get back down. But things did not go according to Larry’s plan.  

When his friends cut the anchor lines, Larry, lifted by the 42 balloons, shot skyward at an astonishing speed. He finally settled at an altitude of 4,000 meters. Afraid to pop any of the balloons, in case he should upset the balance of his “craft,” Larry sat, cold and frightened, in the sky with his beer and sandwiches for 14 hours. 

Airline pilots heading toward Los Angeles’ busy international airport radioed in reports of the strange sight. Larry’s presence in the skies caused numerous planes to be rerouted. Eventually, Larry worked up the nerve to shoot a few balloons and slowly descended, landing in power lines. Uninjured, he climbed down to safety and was arrested by waiting police. 

When asked by a reporter why he had done it, Larry responded, "a man just can't sit around." Larry fulfilled his dream, and set a record for a gas-filled balloon flight. But it cost him: He was later fined US$1,500 for violating air safety regulations. 

梦想起飞，别一飞冲天……

拉里·沃尔特少年时期的梦想并不很平常：他想飞。然而不寻常的是他实现的方式。从学校毕业后，拉里就加入美国空军，但由于视力不佳而被飞行训练学校拒之门外。尽管如此，他的梦想依然没变。

33岁的拉里不是一名飞行员，而是洛杉矶的一名卡车司机。一天，当拉里坐在屋外的折椅上时，突然灵机一动。他看到喷气机从头顶飞过，就想到可以用气象探测气球来飞行。

几个星期后，拉里买了42个直径为1米的气象探测气球。他将气球绑在折椅上并注入氦气。接着他坐上椅子，带了一些啤酒，三明治和一支BB枪。拉里计划在他家后院飘起10米高左右，好好在空中享受几小时，然后用枪击破一些气球以回到地面。但是事情并没有按照拉里的计划进展。

朋友们一切断锚线，拉里就被42个气球拉起，并以惊人的速度射向天际。最后他停在海拔4000米的高度上。担心击破一些气球会导致他的“飞行器”失去平衡，拉里又冷又怕，与他的啤酒和三明治在空中坐了14个小时。

飞往繁忙洛杉矶国际机场的民航飞行员，用无线电报告了这一奇怪的景象。拉里停留在空中迫使许多飞机改变航线。最终拉里鼓起勇气击破了几个气球慢慢地下降，停在电线上。拉里没有受伤，爬了下来，获得了安全，随即被等候的警方逮捕了。

当记者问及为什么会有此举动，拉里答道：“一个人就是不能坐在那里不干事。”拉里实现了梦想，而且创造了一项以充气气球飞行的记录。然而这让他付出的代价是：他后来因违反空中安全条例被罚1500美金。