Come on! Let’s Skydive

But don’t tell my wife.

My son David said he was going to Skydive. He told me the day before he would go. I said, “I would like to see you do it”. he said, “Okay, I will pick you up in the morning”.

The next morning David came by. We headed north to the field where he had reserved his flight. He asked, “Did you tell your wife where we were going?” “I told her I would watch you make a fool of yourself by jumping out of a perfectly good airplane”.

We arrived at the field. It was an open area, not an airport. It was busy loading jumpers onto a large jet plane. We watched the plane takeoff and climb to altitude. The jumpers came out of the open door attached to their instructor's i.e. jump-mates. Tandem Jumping.

I felt the urge to join in the jump's thrill. I signed in. The plane taxied up and parked. The instructors wanted to give me a little training. They told me to duck-walk back to the open door. I got to the door; looked down at the ground. The instructor behind me gave me a shove. It scared me. I thought I would hit the ground four feet below. He laughed and pulled me back.

After a few more, less exciting instructions, we climbed into the seatless aircraft, sat on the floor; our jump-mates sitting behind, all facing rearward, toward the open door. David and his jump-mate sat on my left. We climbed to jump altitude.

It was a sweltering summer day and my instructor sweat copiously. When our time signal rang, we duck-walked toward the door when Dave’s instructor stopped us.

David had spotted something amiss with our parachute.

The laces had come undone. If he had not seen it, the chute would have deployed too soon. Perhaps wrapping around the tail of the plane.

Dave’s jump-mate made repairs to the chute, patted my jump-mate, and said it was okay to go.

It is possible that David saved all of our lives by being alert.

I was hesitant as I slowly Duck-walked back to the door. This is not what I wanted to do, but I could not back out. My son was with me and I could not be a coward in his eyes.

We rolled out of the plane and descended in a rush. The next minute was interminable. Other jumpers flashed by, one of them sticking out a hand for me to shake.

I wanted to spread my arms out like wings. The guy on my back bent my arms forward to the normal position. I spread them out again. I liked my Wings. We went through this three times before he gave up.

When our one-minute free-fall was over he punched me to pull the ripcord. I held tight to the handle of the cord. There was a $25 change if you dropped it.

The drogue chute was out, the main chute deployed. Now I could enjoy the graceful descent. I scanned the countryside to remember the view, then looked down at the fast-moving earth coming at me.

They had told me before the flight that the grass was wet and we should slide in with our legs straight out when we land. I held my legs out straight out too soon and they tired.

Just before landing, my legs collapsed. Instead of smoothly landing, I crumpled up.

After we stopped, I asked my instructor- jump-mate how I did. He said, “You made me work for it”. I guess I did.

The staff took pictures and told me, “Now you are a skydiver. Congratulations”.

Maybe, but I knew I handled it like the amateur I was.

I asked Dave if he wanted to Skydive again soon. He said, “No, that’s finished. I want to do other things now”. When I got home, my wife asked me if I jumped. I stuck out my chest and proudly said, “Yes”.

She was not happy about it and told me so. I knew then my skydiving days were over.