Skydiving

Well, the kind of jump I'll be doing if I don't do tandem requires six hours of training. Even then, two instructors jump with you, plus someone from the ground guides you along the way via radio.

 

Still, you don't know how you're going to react when the wind hits your face, or you look up and see your parachute balled up in a knot.

 

My jump was solo, no static line, no tandem, no instructors, no radio. The plane was a POS Cessna with the door permanently off, and the instructor was a pothead. Eight hours of training though only to forget everything and just survive. Great 90 seconds after the chute opened and before the landing. Never do it again though.

 

Thought about doing it. That all changed when the father of actress Peri Gilpin died.
This is from Wikipedia about him.
Jim O'Brien (February 4, 1940 – September 25, 1983) was born James Oldham in Waco, Texas, and came to Philadelphia in 1970 to become a disc jockey at radio station WFIL-AM, after short stints at KHJ in Los Angeles and WOR-FM in New York City.

In 1976 he joined the WPVI Channel 6 Action News team as a sports anchor. He soon became the weatherman and became a local legend with his presentation of the weather, being the only Philadelphia area weatherman to use a pointer while on the air. O'Brien eventually anchored the Noon newscast, the local edition of Dialing for Dollars and the weekend magazine show Primetime.

He had two favorite hobbies, motorcycle riding and skydiving. It was the latter hobby which would lead to his early death in a skydiving accident on September 25, 1983 near Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania. O'Brien died trying to rescue another skydiver whose parachute failed to open.

He was the father of actors Peri Gilpin, Marc Gilpin and April Gilpin.

 

Doesn't it seem that we hear far more often about experienced jumpers and even trainers perishing while skydiving, as opposed to the first-timers? I'm talking pre-tandem days, too. Maybe it's just dumb luck or the sheer odds of exposing yourself to the risk over and over and over. BTW, I was mostly joking about having a guy on my back, but I did like the freedom and personal challenge of at least landing in one unsplattered piece. The silence way up there, and looking down and seeing birds flying far below me, was special.

Letting first-timers do static line jumps was standard procedure until relatively recently. Not unlike letting toddlers stand up in the passenger seat back in the day, so they could get a good view out of the windshield.

 

Jim O'Brien was an extremely talented and very funny man. He made the weather fun. He has been terribly missed. His daughter was fantastic in Frasier.

 

I did two static-line jumps on two different Saturdays in October of 1987. I was kind of on the outs with a girlfriend at the time and my brother and a bunch of his friends went, so I went with them. Two weeks later, the girlfriend and I are back together and she really wanted to go with us, too. She did and we had a great time.

 

I don't think the hubby wants to jump with me. Funny thing is, it was my mother who re-sparked the interest in me. She's going in a couple of weeks. My mother is NOT the adventurous type, so I figure if she can do it, I sure as hell can.

 

Fandango?