Sky Diving

When I was a little boy around six or so, I would occasionally dream that I was flying. My arms were outstretched and I could feel the pull in my chest as I zoomed through trees and canyons. Now and again during adulthood the dream would recur.

So when I was 48 I took up hang-gliding and when I was 64 I took up sky-diving. There is nothing - NOTHING - in the world that compares to that first jump out of the air-plane into 3000 feet of emptiness. Picture #10 shows me staring down the muzzle of mortality's cannon.

There are three stages to sky-diving. The first is exiting the air-craft where you get banged around quite bit. The second is when the chute deploys and you are floating serenely along.  And the third is coming in for a landing which can be quite "exhilarating" as the ground rushes up.

After seven jumps I had developed enough skill to be allowed to jump without a static-line and deploy the chute myself. So on my eighth jump I achieved my 50 year old goal of being in free-fall. Exiting the airplane on this jump was every bit as unnerving as the first jump. Trying to find the rip-cord in the small of my back was "interesting".

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