Americans weigh in on Fossett's balloon trip

ST. LOUIS -- If some see a Windy City tycoon's solo balloon trek around the globe as a bit looney, don't tell it to the woman running the Ballooney Bin in Laramie, Wyo.

Naomi Nottage cheers Steve Fossett's flight into history as a welcomed break from everything she's sick of hearing -- the drone about America's war on terrorism, crime and politics.

"I like hearing about accomplishments," the 47-year-old single mother said from her shop specializing in costume rentals, singing telegrams and her work as a party clown. "If all you ever hear about is terrorism, I think people become more introverted and paranoid.

"I don't want to be like that or live like that."

Now just days after Fossett finally completed his around-the-world adventure in his sixth try, Americans from Maryland to Montana differ about its relevance.

Nottage and others consider it an uplifting testament to American perseverance and grit by a risk-taking adventurer who has scaled mountain peaks, swam the English Channel and bagged other world records in ballooning, sailing and flying airplanes.

'The ego has landed'

Others dismiss Fossett's feat as a bunch of hullabaloo about a Chicago millionaire they say simply has too much time and money on his hands -- a guy who has taken "Who cares" to new heights. A Detroit Free Press editorial cartoon even depicted Fossett's head as the balloon itself, with the caption "The Ego Has Landed."

Still others, even after global media coverage of Fossett's nearly two weeks aloft before he crossed the Australian finish line Tuesday, made it clear Fossett's becoming the first balloonist to circle the world alone never was on their radar screen.

"I don't really know anything about it," Alan Durbin said while clipping hair at the Highview Barber Shop in Louisville, Ky. "I really didn't follow it."

He added than Fossett likely "is someone with an awful lot of time on his hands."

'What's his name?'

In Keene, N.H., accounting clerk Doreen Ballou needed prompting when asked about Fossett.

"I did hear about it briefly. But to be honest, I don't remember much about it," she struggled. "I can't even tell you what his name was. What's his name?"

When told the answer, she replied: "It is?"

"Let me think," the 35-year-old woman stammered. "Well, nothing's coming to mind. I think he was trying to get around the world in a hot-air balloon, right?"

Right.

"I guess it's a cool thing to accomplish," she went on. "But I can't say it'd be something I'd be interested in doing. I guess he does have too much time on his hands, but if that's the way he wants to spend it, that's OK with me."

Ohio dentist Craig Balloon, admitted he "paid attention to it every night it was in the paper."

"It takes a lot of guts to trust the wind and say, 'It's going to get me around the world,'"said Balloon, 48, himself a student pilot in Akron, Ohio. "His technique -- the way he organized and prepared -- some day may relate to some other type of mission."

Fossett, he says, is a pioneer.

"Let's say he's not successful. At least you found out what you can't do," Balloon said.