Folks help others at Pennington Quality Market
By John Tredrea, Staff Writer
The space ship was coming in for a landing right in front of him.
He stood transfixed. He even started to laugh. What was going to happen?
It was a close encounter of the third kind. Would he be taken to another galaxy, to another dimension, through a time warp?
He was an employee of the Pennington Quality Market. In the produce section Saturday morning, the spaceship, which looked like the sort of oversized top children used to spin on sidewalks, whirled at high speed in front of him. It hovered in the air, then descended slowly.
Suddenly, the employee plucked the spaceship out of the air. He turned to carry it away and said: “Wait till the cashiers see this!”
The spaceship, about 18 inches high and perhaps a foot in diameter at its widest point, was made completely of balloons. The intricacy of its brilliantly colored design was stunning. It flew perfectly. The employee had obtained it by making a donation to the American Cancer Society.
It was a typical Saturday at the market in that worthy causes were being helped while shopping was being done. Parked in front of the store was a bus from the Community Blood Council of New Jersey. Folks were donating blood to help others.
Arnold Brownell had been hired by the market for the day. Mr. Brownell’s business is His Fantasy Balloons. He was making all sorts of things out of balloons for youngsters in the market — dogs on leashes, you name it, he was making it — and the youngsters’ parents would make a donation to the Cancer Society in exchange.
Sometimes grown-ups who still had a bit of kid in them made a donation. That’s where the space ship came from. It was something to see. You almost expected a balloon alien to come out of it. Maybe one did.

