steve1

Thanks for all the great input. If I had known about the great price of having them replaced by Bev I would have done that last winter when I wasn't jumping. Guess I'll wait till next Fall and do that. I sewed on some pieces of leather out of deer skin that I had tanned myself. I put this over the old leather which was worn way down. This worked great until I washed my suit. The hot water washed out the tan, and the deer-skin leather ended up as hard as a rock. I sounded like a tap dancer everytime I went to get on a load. I recently replaced this with some other factory tanned leather, but it too is really thin and soft. I'm hoping the shoe goo will help. I'm anxious to try this out....Steve1

I was wondering where you can buy some of this stuff. I'm trying to get another year out of my favorite jump suit. The booties are about shot, and I am hoping to goo up the bottoms. I've never used this stuff. Is it worth messing with? Thanks,....Steve1

My cypress ran out of time last summer, so yes I will be jumping without one until I can come up with the cash to get another one. I made about 300 jumps in the 70's without one, so it's something I've done before. I think I'll probably invest in a vigil next time around. If I had a back rating I'd be tempted to put my old cypress back in, even though it is out of date. But then again I am kind of an imoral bastard....Steve1

What does that say about this country and how the children are being raised? Good point...That's exactly the problem. Many kids aren't getting what they need at home.....Steve1

I doubt if pizza or a small amount of cash is going to be very effective, and I doubt if it will cause anyone to suddenly become a "Snitch". A few weeks ago I gave a talk to kids in our high school and middle school on the importance of telling someone if they suspect anyone is thinking of bringing a weapon to school, or if they know of anyone that is packing a weapon. Many kids know in advance that an act of violence is about to occur and the school staff often relies on this information to prevent something awful from happening. In Bethel, Alaska a student brought a shotgun into the school and killed several people. Many students knew this was going to happen in advance, but noone was willing to rat on this guy. Many stayed home that day because they knew a shooting was going to happen. All this could have been prevented if only one of those kids had spoke up....Steve1

I agree...If anyone is a Sky God it ought to be Ray Cottingham. I haven't seen him in over thirty years. I'm glad he is back in the air after his heart attack....Steve1

Anyone out there know this old jumper? He was nick named Rozzo and was one of the most colorful jumpers I remember from the 70's. Darkwing said he moved to LasVegas from Idaho. He may still be in that area. At any rate aside from being a great jumper he was also a hypmotist...(did I spell that right?). I remember one jump party at B.J.'s when another jumper volunteered to be hypmotized by Rozzo. We were all drunker than skunks and it wouldn't have taken much to hypmotize any of us. Anyhow it wasn't long before Rozzo had this guy laying on the grass and ready to do anything he asked. Then he began telling this unsuspecting drunk jumper to "rise up"..."rise up"... At that moment Steve Morrow squatted his naked large testicled rear end directly above this poor fellow's face....And he did rise up, stopping just short of ramming his nose into Morrow's rear. Of course we all thought this was great fun. Oh, I could tell even stupider and grosser stories of our misadventures in the old days....but maybe I'd better stop here....Steve1

In the 70's calling someone a "Sky God" was the ultimate complimate to give another jumper. It was the name given to someone that everyone else in the sport looked up to. Now days calling someone a Sky God might be considered an insult if you don't choose your words carefully.....Steve1

Yes, but our club has more women folk and a dog!....Steve1

Hod Sanders boy B.J. has a few hundred jumps now. He was named after B.J. Worth. I'm not sure, but I think Greg Nardi may have a son that jumps. I saw a picture of a young Nardi in Parachutist a while back jumping in Florida. Can anyone fill me in on this? These are all old Montana jumpers from the olden days....Steve1

My hornet 170 was opening too hard when it was new. Since then I started psycho packing, rolling the nose, and my openings have been consistently on heading and soft. I love mine....Steve1

I have some old friends in Western Montana who hunt cats during the winter. When I say cats I mean Mt. Lion and Bob cats. I've never done it, but it sounds like great exercise and fun. You turn several hounds loose on a fresh track in the snow, and then try to keep up. Often times the cat gets away. Other times the dogs come out on the short end of things. Some times a hound is chewed up or clawed bad. A friend had one of his favorite hounds killed by a big cat. The lion not only killed it, but ate half of it. He showed me a picture of what was left. But getting back to house cats..... Do you know how most houndsmen train lion dogs. As pups they turn them loose on you know what. I don't like this part of it either. I watched this once, and it really turned my stomach. I can't say for sure that most train their hounds this way, but many do....Steve1

As for age, any child can pull a trigger, and any adult can be an idiot. I'd rather see a gun in the hands of a 8-year-old who knows and follows the rules rather than a legal adult who doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground. I agree whole heartedly with this. Most kids who are taught proper gun safety would never point a gun at another person. When I was a kid, we may have been young and dumb, but we knew better than to do anything that stupid. I started out hunting birds with a BB gun with my best friend at age six. We later graduated to pellet guns, then 22's. Today this same hunting pardner and I still hunt together for everything from pheasants to elk. The same gun rule we learned way back then still applies today. "ALWAYS POINT A GUN IN A SAFE DIRECTION!" I have another friend, I jump with, who has a 22 caliber pellet buried in his skull directly between his eyes. (Hod Sanders) Apparently his pal didn't follow this rule and almost killed him. And they weren't kids when it happened either. The other guy was around 20 years old. It was too delicate for the Doctors to remove, so they left it....Steve1

I recall committing a major error when I first started out rigging back in the 70's. It probably would not have been fatal, but could have been, and it scared the hell out of me. I assembled and packed a round reserve in a chest pack. Everything was fine, but I forgot the cross connector. If someone had cut away, the butterfly snap could have come unhooked causing the risers to be hooked only on one side. A small chance, but a big error none the less. I realized my mistake the next day after a long thinking process, and repacked it immediately. It made me think hard whether I wanted to be a rigger after that. It also made me a lot more careful whenever I did rigging work. This sort of thing probably happens more than you realize, because noone wants to admit such a major screw up....Steve1

Heck, I remember when it was $12 to 10K feet in the ol' C182 at my first home DZ in the mid 90's... and gas was still hovering around the $1.00 per gallon mark... I can barely remember a few things from the early 70's. A cessna ride to 8,000 ft. was $3.50. A reserve repack was only $5.00, but you needed one every 60 days. I think beer was around $5.00 a case. A complete set of used gear (28 ft. round, 24 ft. round reserve in military containers, might be $150. A new mark 1 para-commander was around $300. Even us poor bastards could afford to jump back then...Steve1

Bob Smith has been making the news lately, and I was wondering if some might want to take another look at his handsome young mug. He was in the recent SOS World Record in Florida. And then I opened up my new Parachutist and there he was again, making a stadium jump (on page 14). The picture failed to mention that Bob is well over 60 years young and now drawing Social Security. He was also a Russian Professor during the 70's at the U. of M.. Not only is he a jumper, but also a commercial pilot. One winter back in 72, Bob was flying our jump plane much of the time. One day B.J. Worth was jumpmastering a static line student when his reserve suddenly fired next to the open door of our club 180. Bob noticed this before B.J. Bob immediately quit flying the airplane and tried slaming the door. This may have saved everyone's life. One of the static line students was Hod Sanders who later became a member of Mirror Image on B.J.'s team. Hod couldn't figure out why everyone was shouting and slamming doors, nor why the airplane suddenly started going Z. I heard B.J. wrote a story about this back in the 70's. I think it had to do with the dangers of having a chest pack reserve while jumpmastering static line students. On another jump around 1970. Bob was supposed to pilot the club plane for some loads. He couldn't make it so another pilot was called. A few hours later a mid-air collision with another plane occured over down town Missoula, killing everyone but one jumper. This surviving jumper was later severely injured in a double malfunction. And then later killed in an airplane crash in a snowstorm here in Montana. Some of these old guys may look old and whimpy, but don't believe it. Bob's my hero! At any rate our club has a lot of history to it, and I'm sad to say that this may be the last year our club is in existence. (Again this is the oldest collegiant club in the U.S.) The price of insurance is too high, and the club is in the process of folding very soon....Steve1

I had a jumpmaster in the Army who had a habit of saying, "F--- God and stand in the door!". (How's that for being touchy feely!). Everyone expected to see him struck dead by lightning, but it never happened. Another jumpmaster I knew would give you the boot if you took too long in the door. A friend of mine landed with shoe polish all over the back of his fatigues. We got a great laugh out of that. Maybe Army jumpmasters, back then, just needed a little sensitivity training....Steve1

I didn't see anyone do this in the 70's. I'm glad to see this becoming a tradition now. In a way it brings us all closer together, every jump.....Steve1

I just got back from a staff meeting with our superintendant, principals, and police. I guess there's some fear that it could happen on our reservation. The recent shooting was in another reservation school by a Native American student. Personally I think this is an over-reaction to what happened. Anyhow this meeting centered around what we could do in our school to better prepare everyone for a "shooter in the school" scenario. Some of the police wanted to do some very realistic training in the school with blanks being fired etc. I don't think I was too popular when I suggested that this might traumatize some of the kids. But it did sound like fun. School this time of year is boring. At any rate many plans are in the works now to better prepare students and staff for the real thing. I've talked to some former administrators who said it is only a matter of time before a shooting does happen in our school. Some were saying that this is the first time a Native American student has shot up a school on a reservation. I wonder about that. I was looking into a job in Alaska where a student brought a shotgun to school and shot up some fellow students. Maybe they aren't called reservations up there.....Steve1

reply] The problem is not our kids having access to weapons, It is an issue that starts well beyond that. I have loaded weapons in my home right now, and a 9 year old son that knows how to use them. In fact is is very profiencient with my handgun. The key is to give them enough guidance and disipline to be well rounded kids, and grow up to be well rounded adults. Maybe if so many parents didnt depend on TV's and Video Games to raise thier kids, this wouldnt be an issue at all. When was the last time you read a story about a kid in the 1800's eary 1900's shooting kids in school? (At that time it was common for kids under 13 to routinely use guns) Society as a whole has failed in the rearing of the younger generation. This post makes a great deal of sense to me. There are still good parents out there, but as a whole America has really dropped the ball in raising multitudes of our youth. Our country should be ashamed of this fact. Test scores of kids as a whole, have been going steadily down hill...while crime, delinguency, and drug abuse have been steadily increasing (since about 1970). Many think it's because kids aren't getting what they need from home. A kid who is brought up right, rarely turns into a troubled youth. Access to guns isn't the problem. Kids had greater access to guns earlier in our history with much lower homicide rates (due to guns). Part of the blame is on our modern high tech society. Life is definitely easier now, but maybe not the best place to raise a kid. Many youth feel disconnected from their families because they rarely see or talk with them. Many are extremely angry inside, and they take this to school with them each day. Many have known little love or acceptance in their life and their hurt comes out as anger. Some don't even have parents. Many others feel like failures or that they have no purpose in life. Prisons and juvenile facilities are full of people like this and the numbers increasing every year. Maybe more effort should be put into correcting the real source of the problem rather than just passing feel good gun restrictions. I think parenting classes should be part of every school's curriculum. There's way too many crappy parents out there. Many are doing they best they can, but again failing miserably at this job. The school I work in has two full time police officers. Both carry a 45 pistol, mace, baton, and taser. Personally I'm glad they're there.....Steve1

Tell Bob that Steve Anders says hi, and tell him to keep up the good work. Bob was one of my instructors when I was just a pup....Steve1

I was just wondering if Bob Smith from Montana is there. I think he was planning on going....Steve1

I made about 300 jumps on a mk 1 Para Commander back in the "good ole" days. I used to do a chin up on the back risers when landing. It worked great as long as the wind wasn't blowing too hard. I never heard of letting them back up, but maybe that works too. On really windy days I used to hook it into the wind at the last minute. The lines are really long on a standard PC, and if you can oscillate into the wind at the last second, it helps some. I wish someone had taught me to twist around 180 degrees on wind jumps. I hated rear PLF's. I don't know how many times I hit feet, ass, and head when jumping in 20 plus MPH winds. I still have a head ache from doing that. No fun at all. I couldn't imagine jumping without a helmet back then. T-10's aren't too hard to stand up if conditions are right. I used to stand them up fairly regularly when we jumped in the National Guard. (Usually when an officer wasn't looking.) This was considered a no no when jumping with the military. I never used duck tape, but I did have a lot of rip stop tape covering the burns on my old P.C. I've got an old rip cord for a super-pro container, if anyone needs one. Brand new 30 years ago, never used it. I kept thinking I needed an extra, but never did....Steve1

Bob Sinclair is my hero! I hope to still be jumping when I'm his age....Steve1

Yeah? Why don't you go to my high school? The nurse is not a physician. She has quite a few Ritalin pills to hand out to anybody. Many high schools are turning this way. Sounds to me like you could easily file a law suit against that school if this is happening. School nurses do give this medication each day, but only to those who have a Dr.'s prescription. This is very carefully regulated in my school. Somebody could serve some jail time if they are doing otherwise.....Steve1