I made my last parachute jump today.

[dgauss]

26. I love that story. I took a jump about 20 years ago and here's another little jump story:

I always wanted to give that a try, did so around 40 years old. the feeling of just floating down from the sky was magical. It was a day for beginners like me who wore some earphones and there was an instructor on the ground watching you giving instructions. Like "Now pull the right cord a bit, now the left, now both", etc and they would guide you down. These were more like paragliding shoots than the old round ones you see in old WWII movies, easily maneuverable.

But I ended up in a cornfield that was on the edge of the open field we were suppose to land in. I didn't mind, the whole thing was great and even the landing in a cornfield in some way put a special thrill to the end.

But after I returned from the cornfield the instructor apologized and explained that the person that went before me had a rough landing and they were busy attending to her while I was making my landing. Which is why they didn't give me instructions to turn one way or the other to avoid the cornfield.

I saw a video someone took of that lady's landing later. She was middle aged at least and overweight. She came in too fast, not vertically but horizontally. When she landed she couldn't run fast enough to end the landing easily. Almost as soon as she hit the ground she went face first into the ground, her heels came up over the back of her head and she did a complete flip, face first into the ground. I could see why all the concern turned to her. From the video you might think she broke her neck. But she was OK. Seemed like a miracle when I saw that video.

At first I wondered why someone like that would attempt such a thing. But then I thought, she probably did it for the same reason I did. She wanted to. And she did it, she took a little risk to experience something amazing and she did it.

What I came away with overall was a good lesson in "don't judge a book by it's cover."