Ten years after Larry Walters drifted over the Pacific Coast in an airborne lawn chair, he's landed in an advertising campaign for the watch that "takes a licking and keeps on ticking."
Timex Corp. hired Walters for magazine ads because he fit the company's campaign touting ordinary individuals who conquer enormous obstacles, said spokesman Ron Sok.Walters, now 42, captured the nation's attention - and startled some airline pilots - when he strapped 42 weather balloons to a lawn chair and floated three miles above Los Angeles' city streets. The July 2, 1982, voyage took him 15 miles from San Pedro to Long Beach.
Wearing a parachute, he landed his makeshift craft by deflating seven balloons with a pellet gun - and promised authorities he would never do it again.
Timex paid him $1,000 for the ad, not quite enough to recoup the $1,500 fine he had to pay the Federal Aviation Administration.