This is another article about Balloonfest ‘86. Yet another reason to hate the United Way. I will never forget how UW tried to hit up fellow Kmart employees making minimum wage to donate to their bloated executives. This also reminds me of another story. It was around 1986 when my elementary school had an assembly and each kid let go a balloon with a postcard attached to it. Upwards of 1,000 balloons or so were let go in West Covina, and the farthest one was recovered in Running Springs about 50 miles to the east and a mile above sea level.