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American Morning

Special Delivery

Aired December 30, 2002 - 08:44   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Here is a story for the season -- 11- year-old Steven (ph) Tu Olson wanted one thing for Christmas. You know what he wanted? He wanted a pen pal. But he didn't ask Santa for one, he took matters into his own hands. You see Olson wrote his request on a balloon, and he put on that balloon his name, his address and he attached a Pokemon card. He sent his address skyward from Kenosha, Wisconsin, and it didn't take it too long for that balloon to reach South Bend, Indiana. It ended up in 7-year-old Nick Rynearson. And the two boys quickly became pen pals.
And this morning, Tu and Nick are meeting face-to-face for the first time. You see them right there, they're in Chicago, along with their moms, to tell us their heart-warming stories.

Thank you for coming in this morning, folks.

Hey, Tu, where did you get this idea?

TU OLSON, LAUNCHED "SEEKING PEN PAL" BALLOON: From a show I watched on TV.

HARRIS: Which show was that?

OLSON: "Ripley's Believe It or Not."

HARRIS: You saw someone on "Ripley's Believe It or Not" someone put a Pokemon card on a balloon?

OLSON: They didn't put a Pokemon card.

HARRIS: You came up with that idea on your own?

OLSON: Yes.

HARRIS: Which Pokemon was it?

OLSON: Blang's Toys (ph).

HARRIS: That was a lucky one, then. Nick, what do you think? Where did you find the balloon?

NICK RYNEARSON, TU'S PEN PAL: In my front yard.

HARRIS: It blew all the way to your front yard? So what did you do?

RYNEARSON: My dad went out and he picked it up, and when he brought it back in, he saw it had handwriting on it.

HARRIS: So now that you've seen Tu now face-to-face, what do you think? Was he what he imagined he would be?

RYNEARSON: Pretty much.

HARRIS: How about you, Tu? Now that you've seen Nick...

OLSON: Yes.

HARRIS: ... did Nick shape up to be exactly what you thought he was going to be like?

OLSON: Uh-huh.

HARRIS: OK, let's talk to the moms about all of this.

Susan, now, this is a really neat idea. I've heard about this kind of thing happening from time to time, but never talked to somebody who has done it. What did you think about this idea when Tu brought it up to you?

SUSAN OLSON, MOTHER: Actually, I didn't find out until I received the call from the Rynearson's the next morning. So Steven had kind of done this on his own. He had been at a party across the street and he had a helium balloon.

HARRIS: Really? That is something else.

SUSAN OLSON: And he was downstairs monkeying around with it and I knew something was going on, but he came up a little while later and said I'm going to go outside and play with my balloon. So he went outside to play with the balloon and then he came in, and he said I want to walk the dogs really bad, which usually he doesn't want to do. And so he took them for a walk because he was chasing the balloon, but I had no idea he had set it off.

It was kind of a surprise to me the next morning, I received this call and I woke him up and I said, "Tu, what is going on here? Did you send a balloon off?" And that's when he explained his story to me.

HARRIS: That's cute.

How about what happened on your end, Shirley?

SHIRLEY RYNEARSON, MOTHER: We were actually opening our Christmas presents. We open our presents on Christmas Eve morning, and we looked outside, and our yard is about 150 foot long, and right in the middle of our yard was the balloon, and we actually thought maybe it was something that had floated off of someone's mailbox or something. My husband went out and got it out of the yard, and he saw the writing on it. And when we saw the prefix, we thought maybe it was a local kid that had dropped, it because it had a local prefix, but then we saw Tu had written the area code, and we saw that it was from Kenosha, Wisconsin, and we still weren't believing it, because we thought maybe somebody was in town visiting, but it ended up being, when my husband made the phone call, that it was really from Kenosha.

HARRIS: Have you guys figured out how many miles this balloon went?

SUSAN OLSON: Over 100.

SHIRLEY RYNEARSON: Yes.

SUSAN OLSON: It must have -- we got the atlas out and looked at it right away, and it must have gone right over the lake, because the last that he saw it, it was flying over the lake, and he thought probably it fell into the water. So we figured it would be about 110 miles, maybe.

HARRIS: All right, OK, well, Tu, Nick, let me ask you on the way out now, do you guys think you might try to do something like this again?

OLSON: Maybe.

RYNEARSON: Yes.

HARRIS: Maybe? Yep? That's it?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nick actually wants to write back on the balloon and send it back to Tu on a balloon.

HARRIS: That's great. Well, listen, best of luck to all of you. Tu Olson, Susan Olson, Nick Rynearson and Shirley Rynearson. You guys may not be replacing AT&T any time soon with that, but you made a nice long-distance connection there. Good luck to all of you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired December 30, 2002 - 08:44   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Here is a story for the season -- 11- year-old Steven (ph) Tu Olson wanted one thing for Christmas. You know what he wanted? He wanted a pen pal. But he didn't ask Santa for one, he took matters into his own hands. You see Olson wrote his request on a balloon, and he put on that balloon his name, his address and he attached a Pokemon card. He sent his address skyward from Kenosha, Wisconsin, and it didn't take it too long for that balloon to reach South Bend, Indiana. It ended up in 7-year-old Nick Rynearson. And the two boys quickly became pen pals.
And this morning, Tu and Nick are meeting face-to-face for the first time. You see them right there, they're in Chicago, along with their moms, to tell us their heart-warming stories.

Thank you for coming in this morning, folks.

Hey, Tu, where did you get this idea?

TU OLSON, LAUNCHED "SEEKING PEN PAL" BALLOON: From a show I watched on TV.

HARRIS: Which show was that?

OLSON: "Ripley's Believe It or Not."

HARRIS: You saw someone on "Ripley's Believe It or Not" someone put a Pokemon card on a balloon?

OLSON: They didn't put a Pokemon card.

HARRIS: You came up with that idea on your own?

OLSON: Yes.

HARRIS: Which Pokemon was it?

OLSON: Blang's Toys (ph).

HARRIS: That was a lucky one, then. Nick, what do you think? Where did you find the balloon?

NICK RYNEARSON, TU'S PEN PAL: In my front yard.

HARRIS: It blew all the way to your front yard? So what did you do?

RYNEARSON: My dad went out and he picked it up, and when he brought it back in, he saw it had handwriting on it.

HARRIS: So now that you've seen Tu now face-to-face, what do you think? Was he what he imagined he would be?

RYNEARSON: Pretty much.

HARRIS: How about you, Tu? Now that you've seen Nick...

OLSON: Yes.

HARRIS: ... did Nick shape up to be exactly what you thought he was going to be like?

OLSON: Uh-huh.

HARRIS: OK, let's talk to the moms about all of this.

Susan, now, this is a really neat idea. I've heard about this kind of thing happening from time to time, but never talked to somebody who has done it. What did you think about this idea when Tu brought it up to you?

SUSAN OLSON, MOTHER: Actually, I didn't find out until I received the call from the Rynearson's the next morning. So Steven had kind of done this on his own. He had been at a party across the street and he had a helium balloon.

HARRIS: Really? That is something else.

SUSAN OLSON: And he was downstairs monkeying around with it and I knew something was going on, but he came up a little while later and said I'm going to go outside and play with my balloon. So he went outside to play with the balloon and then he came in, and he said I want to walk the dogs really bad, which usually he doesn't want to do. And so he took them for a walk because he was chasing the balloon, but I had no idea he had set it off.

It was kind of a surprise to me the next morning, I received this call and I woke him up and I said, "Tu, what is going on here? Did you send a balloon off?" And that's when he explained his story to me.

HARRIS: That's cute.

How about what happened on your end, Shirley?

SHIRLEY RYNEARSON, MOTHER: We were actually opening our Christmas presents. We open our presents on Christmas Eve morning, and we looked outside, and our yard is about 150 foot long, and right in the middle of our yard was the balloon, and we actually thought maybe it was something that had floated off of someone's mailbox or something. My husband went out and got it out of the yard, and he saw the writing on it. And when we saw the prefix, we thought maybe it was a local kid that had dropped, it because it had a local prefix, but then we saw Tu had written the area code, and we saw that it was from Kenosha, Wisconsin, and we still weren't believing it, because we thought maybe somebody was in town visiting, but it ended up being, when my husband made the phone call, that it was really from Kenosha.

HARRIS: Have you guys figured out how many miles this balloon went?

SUSAN OLSON: Over 100.

SHIRLEY RYNEARSON: Yes.

SUSAN OLSON: It must have -- we got the atlas out and looked at it right away, and it must have gone right over the lake, because the last that he saw it, it was flying over the lake, and he thought probably it fell into the water. So we figured it would be about 110 miles, maybe.

HARRIS: All right, OK, well, Tu, Nick, let me ask you on the way out now, do you guys think you might try to do something like this again?

OLSON: Maybe.

RYNEARSON: Yes.

HARRIS: Maybe? Yep? That's it?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nick actually wants to write back on the balloon and send it back to Tu on a balloon.

HARRIS: That's great. Well, listen, best of luck to all of you. Tu Olson, Susan Olson, Nick Rynearson and Shirley Rynearson. You guys may not be replacing AT&T any time soon with that, but you made a nice long-distance connection there. Good luck to all of you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com