FLYING LAUNDRY BAGS aka SKY LANTERN'S

At nine years old in the 4th grade, one thing I remember that was very cool was the flying laundry bags. With a 25-cent investment in a Laundromat vending machine, out would come a very thin plastic laundry bag. This particular plastic was the best to use, it was thin and light. The bags were at least 3 to 4 feet deep by 2 feet wide. A quarter for the bag, 12 plastic straws, 8 birthday candles and 8 light rubber bands would do the trick. In this particular case, my friend and I got one of these bags and proceeded to put it to the test. The evening was overcast, cloudy and very still, no wind, perfect for flight. As I opened the bag up, my friend would lay on the ground with a lighter to keep the heat going up into the bag to keep it open. We then took the plastic straws, by inserting three straws into each other, using all 12 straws; we had 4 long plastic straws that we then criss-crossed and placed inside the plastic bag. One level of straws in the upper part of the bag and one level at the base of the plastic bag. We then took the rubber bands and wrapped them around then ends of the straws on the outside of the bag. With a small pocketknife we cut slits into the straws, 4 slits for each level, enough for one birthday candle in each slit. The bag held 8 candles total. Once lit, the bag then would fill up with hot air and then the magic moment, slowly, lifting off and rising higher and higher above the trees and houses, it kept going up. We were mesmerized at the fact that this bag eventually got so high that it looked like a little star, just a small glowing dot - eventually fading away into the sky.