Well Bob, since you asked, here's the brief story. It was about 1979, when we, my group of busking buddies and I, aka the Buzzards, were hangin' 'round The Mall in Santa Cruz. It was the place to be if you, like us, were into doing what we were in that area, street performing. With no hope of offering our unique brand of voodoo/acid/blurgrass/oldtimey/folk/blues/fusion to a wholly nonexistent audience, I pulled out something that I had been wanting to do for a while. That, was inflating my six foot weather balloon.

Since I had only my lungs for completing the task, I wasted no time in huffin' and a puffin' until I had the orb about two thirds full. At about four feet in diameter I began to notice a curious side effect from using my lung power to accomplish this feat. I began to feel kind of giddy and lightheaded. The balloon was beginning to get some notice from my band mates and those few folks passing by in the area. My state of hyperventilation prompted me to reflect openly on such matters related to the twisting and tying of balloons and a great many bad puns followed. It was during that comical moment that the word "balloonatic" popped out. At that time, I had already been offering balloons to children that had accompanied their adult counterparts to our performances.