The balloons went up and the balloons came down – at least on five tries out of six during the annual Balloon Festival this past weekend in Lewiston and Auburn.

Amazingly, the persistent rains that dogged us in July and early August more often gave way to perfect azure skies.

The weather may be a matter of luck, but the preparation and running of the annual festival isn’t. That takes countless volunteers countless hours to plan for and operate the three-day celebration.

Over the years, we’ve seen a variety of festivals come and go in the Sun Journal region.

New festivals begin well enough, but they can be doomed by a variety of factors, ranging from poor weather, to poor attendance, to infighting to financial difficulties.

The balloon festival, however, with this weekend’s 16th annual show, has endured, thanks mainly to the dedication of its many volunteers.

There’s another factor that helps explain the balloon festival’s success. Standing in Railroad Park, watching the balloons fill and lift off, it’s hard not to be moved by the brightly colored craft quietly defying gravity and floating away on the whim of the wind.

For a moment, at least, all of our everyday concerns – from the contentious presidential election to the high cost of everything – somehow lift with them. And, at least for a few minutes, we are all children again.

And that feeling never gets old.