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Don, I couldn't find the link. I did find your page and saw some of your photos from an earlier reunion. Rick

Wendy, 2500 was pull altitude in the old days. I didn't go below that on purpose. I won't say it never happened but it wasn't my thing to go low. I just wanted to get to the ground in one piece, pack as fast as possible and get on the next RW load. The tandem requirement was just too much. Straight to AFF would have been fine and a little like RW so it would have been cool. I did need to know about square parachutes, so ground school was good too. I do have 800 or so hours in fixed wing aircraft so I understand the pattern and the flare. I swooped a Mooney all the way down the Easterwood Airport runway on my first landing attempt with the instructor rapping my throttle hand knuckles with a pencil and yelling "I told you no more than 70 knts over the threshold, now go around and slow down on the next one." I also have a balloon rating so I understand planning the approach to landing well ahead of time.

Good luck on the comeback jump Spooky. They seem to take jumping out of a plane serious now. It was fun when we just did it without mommy looking over our shoulders and saying no. Sign of the times I guess. When we were kids mom threw us out the door and said don't come back in till dinner time. She didn't really care what we were up to as long as we were outside. I love "A Different World" by Bucky Covington. Great lyrics.

Back in '71, 5 SL jumps and then I was a skydiver. Looks harder to get off the tit nowadays to me. I though about a comeback jump for the 40th anniversary of my SCR/SCS but the BS was too deep.

Hey Don, are you having an old farts reunion in Stephenville or was that just a rumor?

Jim, that was a long drive for two jumps but that had to be the weekend. I remember jumping on that New years day. I jumped John Mincher's PC since I had sold mine to Dave Boatman before I went to Europe. I remember John's PC opening really hard, seemed like a second or two before I pulled. Glad to made the connection, best wishes to you and get back on that piano Rick

In '71, '72, '73, one DZ, either Angleton or Dickinson, wouldn't let you pack a cheapo or PC without someone holding tension. In V-Mills, and Cleveland, we just used a reserve as weight when no one was handy, shook it and sleeved it as fast as we could to make the next load. Made for some nice soft openings. I never packed or jumped a square so I don't know how important the tension is for them. Unfortunately back then most girls at the DZ weren't jumpers but came to keep from being left at home. I only jumped with one girl in three years and that was at V-Mills, Phyllis Wilhelm. There was a girl that jumped at Dickinson, who I think was named Jeanie, but I never was lucky enough to get on a load with her.

First PC jump was on a borrowed PC in Austin with 20knts and on a hot day so it was heels, ass and head. The drag ended at the barbed wire fence. Fortunately it didn't do much damage and I bought the PC anyway but the guy I borrowed it from was really worried. Way better than the old cheapo and especially when the density altitude was high and you came in like a ton of bricks.

Jim, I guessed you would have been in the background. I left Valley Mills in August of '72, sold everything and went to Europe. I hitchhiked from Houston to NY City and then all over Europe for 3 months. Got back in November of '72 so the Cleveland weekend I am remembering would have been in November or December '72, or January or February '73. I think V-Mills shut down while I was gone and Caddo Mills hadn't started up yet. It may have even been the last time I jumped if it was February. My logbook got lost in Valley Mills in July of '72 and I didn't bother to keep records of my jumps after that. I did find the logbook later when I was cleaning up my VW van to sell and it was wedged between the rear seat and motor compartment. I had the middle seat out of it in Valley Mills and slept in it or on the ground and everything I owned was spread around the inside. V-Mills was really the RW capital of the central US in those days. It was nice in the old days to be able to jump many of the DZ's with no creds other than someone to vouch for you. I never joined the USPA and today I don't think you can even be a WUFFO without a license. I took up boat building and sailing in '73 and later got my pilot's license and a hot air balloon rating but never jumped again. I thought about a 40 year comeback jump last year on my 8-man anniversary but I couldn't even do an AFF without a tandem first and that sounded lame so I passed. I attached a copy of my passport picture from July of '72. Like I said, I was kind of a freak back then and if not for John Mincher I wouldn't have gotten on many of the big loads. Definitely not part of the in crowd. I was usually 30th out of the DC-3. Are you still in Kansas?

Jim, I just looked at the SCR & SCS data base and you earned your SCR in Elsinore a month before I got mine and you got your SCS in V-Mills 3 weeks after I got mine in Dickinson but only 9 people later. I'll bet I was in V-Mills when you got your SCS but I don't have my logbook with me to be sure. I moved into my VW van on the V-mills DZ sometime in May of '72 to work on my RW full time. I was kind of a freak because I got my SCR and SCS on my 44th jump so a lot of the guys were understandably leery of jumping with me till I had consistently gotten into some ten man stars on the garbage loads that followed the 10 man team out of the DC-3. They were busy practicing for Tallequah. '72 is my favorite year.

I didn't get the musical gene so I have always admired anyone who had it, and especially playing with no music in front of you. I hope you still play, I could have listened all night but just the one or two pieces you played stuck in my memory. Did you play jazz or ragtime in those days? Are you in the 20 man picture? I recognize some of the Texas guys. Front row from left, Phil Mayfield (always signed your logbook in mirror image), Dave Boatman (he was in my first 8-man), Jess Hall (jumped with a .25 auto in his jumpsuit sleeve pocket), not sure, Gregg Hackett, Curran Phillip (saved more than one life), Ken Gillespie, not sure, John Mincher (in my first 8-man an got me onto the load), not sure. Back from left, only ones I remember are third from left, Ron Cox and far right David Arrington. John Mincher would remember them all sure. I'll send him this link.

Yes Wendy, it was a BFD in those days if like me and most of my skydiving friends, all you thought about was RW. No EFS on our minds then, just RW. The two X's over Texas was the next milestone but an 18 man was the best I ever got to before I moved on to sailboats and travelling. The fact that only 6 of the guys on the DZ had an 8-man and we were just 20 miles from Houston is telling in how rare it was in those days. All those guys SCR numbers were in three digits. Bill Newell said I had the fewest jumps for the SCS at the time. This was pre wind tunnel but I did hang out the sunroof of my buddies VW squareback on frequent trips to Valley Mills just to get the feel of the air.

If I remember correctly he was tall, 6'2" or more, thin and had long dark hair, wavier than Matt's and he was younger than Matt. He could really play that piano.

I have a friend who says "if you can remember those days then you weren't there". Thanks, I'm sure we were in a star or two and. You guys were fun to jump and party with. I'm in Coffeyville, KS for a couple of months and just got to thinking about the Kansas jumpers and remembered the piano player.

With 43 jumps under my belt in 1972 John Mincher said "Rick can make the eighth, he was in a 6 man last weekend". John loaded me into the Cessna with him and two others and we chased another Cessna to 10,500 and I got my SCR and SCS on my 44th jump thanks to John vouching for me and also beating me into the star. I went 3rd from the chase plane and he followed me out. It did cost a case of beer (yes, in the old days we didn't waste a lot of beer and only bought one case, besides there weren't that many people on the DZ with an SCR to participate in the ceremony) We did have two cherries on the load, as Spiderman got his SCR coming in sixth. So that did make two cases of beer.

In 1972 I got my SCR and SCS on my 44th jump in a two Cessna load where they didn't have a qualified 8th. I'd say jumping with newbies wasn't a problem for the Galveston drop zone. Spiderman had his cherry popped on the same load with over 500 jumps in his logbook. Later, I was left out of some larger attempts in Valley Mills till I had consistently come in 10th a number of times. When the twin Beech wasn't full they would let me go last. After that, 30th out of the DC-3 was no problem with only 60 jumps in my logbook. I had good mentors who would go base and let me pin them starting on my 8th jump. My thanks to Steve Hazen and John Mincher and many others who took Steve and John's word that I wouldn't blow it. P.S. - to stay on topic, I paid $75 for my first rig. A 28' 7TU and surplus harness, container, sleeve, a box of rubber bands, some break cord and a 24' unmodified reserve. I also got a jumpsuit with a hole in one leg where the guys tibia ripped through it on his last jump in that jumpsuit. A student opened below him and he was still in a leg cast when I bought it. At 22 years old I didn't consider all the implications of what a close call he had. Imagine landing a cheapo in the Texas wind with a bone, your bone, sticking out of your jumpsuit.

When you didn't know any better it wasn't a big deal. Getting a PC seemed like a huge improvement over the rags that we thought we had it made. A standup almost every time. There were always some whiners even though they had a PC.

There were a couple of guys that had Paraplanes back in '71 & '72 in V-Mills but they had to have another canopy if they wanted to do RW due to the forward surge on opening. All of us round jumpers were afraid of them. Come to think of it, we were afraid of anyone who was into style or accuracy anyway.

John loved to fly planes and he loved RW (flying his body) but if he was going some where he took his MU-2. John was a great husband, father and a caring human being, the world is poorer for his passing.

I jumped with a group from Hutchinson, KS several times in Valley Mills, TX in '72 and in Cleveland, TX in late '72 or early '73. Matt Farmer's name is the only one I can remember (and his fuchsia cheapo). Once in Cleveland we went to eat at the end of the day to a café that had a piano in the corner. One of the Hutchinson jumpers was coaxed and reluctantly sat down at it and played jazz or ragtime piano like nobody's business. He seemed kind of shy and only played a couple of tunes but it was fantastic. Does anybody know who I am talking about?

Google Earth has some old aerial/sat photos available in some areas. I have used it to locate the old Galveston Skydivers DZ in Dickinson, TX. If you zoom in on Lake Geneva in the area you suspect the DZ was located you will see a button in the bottom left of the image that says "History". Click that and a slider will appear in the top left that has all the old photos by year. They might have one old enough to see the DZ on the ground. Tip: if you zoom out you get some older low rez photos on the slider. Just for grins I had a look at the Wag Aero airfield NW of Lake Geneva and zoomed out it goes back to 1988, not far enough back to get to the era you are looking for, but another quadrant may have some older stuff available. It is a cool tool but can be frustrating when the area you want to look at is just off the edge of an old photo and you only have the newer stuff.

The peas weren't nearly as soft to sleep on as they were to land in but in Valley Mills it was sometimes the only place that wasn't muddy. I'm talking that black sticky stuff that would add another 2" to the bottom of your Frenchies.

You've got to love the Frenchies in that picture. I jumped with Larry in Valley Mills, TX in the summer of 1972. He and I lived on the DZ in our VW vans for a few months. Larry had the pop-up camper VW and mine was just a plain van with the center seat removed. He had just completed his night 8-man in Z-Hills before he got to V-Mills. He came to V-Mills because we had a DC-3 and a twin Beech and were making what were big attempts in those days. We never made a night jump together but we did lots of great RW that summer. He was a cool guy and I'm sorry to hear he is gone.

If it was a small woman's rig, the weights may have been to help her fall faster for RW. The fat boys used small wings under their arms to slow them down (only legal to the elbow back in '73). There wasn't as much science to skydiving back in '73 but there was a lot of fun in it.

Watching this makes me sad I left the sport in '73. I wish the party could have gone on forever.