How to pass a watermelon in freefall

[patworks 5]

How to pass a watermelon in freefall:
J-Mac’s question,

Quote

I think I've heard of watermelon dives, too - ever done such a dive, Pat?

Pat’s answer, Well yes/No - - - -
Nope. But around 1964 I watched Fritz Jackson and Joe Kuhn & Bill Nicholson do a watermelon dive. Meby Bob Authur was camera... or Ed Burran (I forget). Wonderful thing, the mind.

Anyhow, some time back in the dim dark past, around the time Ed Fitch opened his TASCO
Parachute Center in Houston, things got weird out.

Standard picture. Jumpers sitting around talking with the aroma of BS in the air...
*Say, wouldn’t it be wonderful if..... *
*… lets pass a watermelon!*
*Wonderful!*
*. . . a BIG fugger...*
*Yea, if it is BIG Enough -- we are certain to get famous!*
[ for those not blessed by being Texan, In Texas, a big watermelon is, well a BIG watermelon]

Not being retards, they get this BIG watermelon and
push 550 cord (suspension line) thru and around it so that
on each end
there is a handy Handle!
Woo-boy!

The Official Plan:
Joe and Fritz leave the Plane (C-195) with BIG Watermelon in-hand;
one on each end.
Bill swoops from above and sort of gloms onto it.
Whilst, Ed shoots the Nobel Peace Prize Photos
Simple, effective and *easy* {ah fame!}
So,
altitude
exit
action
camera.

Beautiful shot -- Bill and Ed alone in the flat Texas sky.
Meanwhile below, far, far below
is the watermelon.
With Fritz and Joe Holdin' ON.
The watermelon precedes them as it burns a hole in the blue.
Flag-like, they flap together above the monster green cannon ball.
Unaccustomed to pain, Joe lets go.
*Hey, you hurt me up there!*
(Spriong! Up he goes!)
Whilst Fritz and the watermelon reach Mach 7.2.
Fritz lets go. (It was hurtin my hand, it waz pulling so hard!)
Watermelon thunders in to a yellow-green Texas field.

We regroup.
Clearly, watermelons are not an automatic entry into the SAG.
We need a sure thing.
A Mattress! Lovely Idea!
Genius! Oh, hold me back....
YO! A freakin Beauty Rest Mattress in free fall!
*. . . . a skydiver lightly lands to lay and snooze on air. . .*

Screaming we are gonna be famous… we are gonna be RICH!
We set off to plot and scheme.

But that is another story.

Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,

[steve1 5]

Tell us another one, Pat!....

[ltdiver 3]

Pat! I'm laughing so hard I'm crying.

Love your artisanship with words in your story telling!

Yes, please tell us more!

ltdiver

Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon

[darkwing 5]

1973, Star, Idaho...

http://www.cofc.edu/~wraggj/images/watermelon1a.jpg

-- Jeff
My Skydiving History

[skr 1]

Just wandering by and thought I heard a
jump story in progress. Sure enough ...

I've always enjoyed the way you told
that story.


Also, for all you old farts out there who
used to type in a monospace font and
use spaces to make things indent right,
I wanted to mention the secret html tag
"pre" that Sangiro added to counter the
way html deletes leading and multiple
spaces.

It's just like the other tags, url, b, u etc
where you have
left bracket tag right bracket bunch_of_content left bracket /tag right bracket.

Here's an example enclosed in "pre" tags:

first line

second line indented 4 spaces

third line indented 8 spaces

fourth line

OK, now I'll post it and see if this still works :-) :-)

Skr

[patworks 5]

SKR,
Yep. you are correct. It woulda looked a LOT gooder if i had used spaces... the original had em and it helped.

br br pre bigI'll go back and poke at it.

Interesting

I can

Edit this... ] pre

but not

my post. /big /pre>

(Yez, my brain died recently)

Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,

[skr 1]

> spaces... the original had em and it helped

I know, I had the same problem, so I asked
about it down in one of those forums at the
bottom, probably suggestions and feedback,
and Sangiro activated the "pre" tag.

> I can
> Edit this...
> but not
> my post.

There is a time limit (6 hrs?) for editing posts,
probably to encourage people to think a bit instead
of just firing from the hip, and also maybe to keep
people from coming back much later and rewriting
history.

You could post the whole thing again and enclose
it in "pre" tags.

This whole place is an experimental work in progress,
and I think it looked better with spaces too.


I haven't been coming here much lately, I gave up
trying to jump here locally and my inspiration faded.

I'll probably get active again when we move up
to Seattle/Vancouver.

Meanwhile, to keep from developing an altered
state deficit I started teaching English in China.

I finally have an answer for when people ask me
what I do - I'm a part time English teacher :-) :-)

Skr