steve1

I may not have good looking legs, but my wife says I have a nice ass on me!......Steve1

There is some history to this photo. A brewing company gave us a keg to drink if we would take a picture of our club drinking it. Our club is supposed to be the oldest continually running collegiant club in the U.S. It started in the 50's. At one time nearly all our members were college students. Now our club has almost no college members. I guess they don't like hanging out with all us old farts. Our club is owned by Hod Sanders on the far left. Hod is a former member of Mirror Image, a former member of the Navy parachute team (The Leap Frogs), helped build the Olympic rings going into the Olympics in Korea. He still goes on all of B.J.'s big ways, including the last 357 way. He may be older and heavier now, but he can still fly like a bird. Walt Mercer is the old guy on the far upper right. He flew the first ten-way out of his beech in Taft, California. He lost his commercial rating recently due to a heart murmor. I think it was hard for him to quit flying jumpers. Bob Smith is second from right on the bottom. He's over 65 and has been in a couple SOS world records. Bob grew up in Idaho, but fought in the Israeli army in Jordan during the 70's. He says he still has his stripes and that he may have to go back over there to get things straightened out. I'm the intelligent looking old fart on the far right. I've never done anything famous, but someday I may.....Steve1

Now that's a nice set of legs! Mine just seem to get scrawnier and whiter as the years go by.....Steve1

Idaho is a great place. I grew up about about 30 miles from the Idaho border on the Montana side. I know of a really cool cliff on the Idaho side. I'll bet it's about 600 feet or so (if I remember right). I've often thought that if I was a base jumper that would be the cliff to try. But then again if you got hurt it might be a long way out on horseback. Or I guess you could call in a helicopter. If you went during the Fall you could also shoot an elk in there. Idaho is mostly "Red Neck" country, but most people are friendly and more open minded than you would expect.....Steve1 edit for BASE site location ~TA

Jeane, That's a good point. Many weren't tracking very flat or for very far.....Steve1

he must be a gun owner as well There's a lot of truth here. Most administrators I've known are pretty slippery.....Steve1

I remember lot's of folks who had the big altimeters taken out of the dash of an airplane. They weren't considered cool, but they worked just fine....that is as long as you didn't have a hard opening and bang your face into it. They were huge! I had a stop watch too, but I don't think I ever looked at it. It just filled in the open spot on dash board on top of my belly wart and looked cool. I never was brave enough to pull off the ground very often. I suppose with practice you could get the hang of it. I've had ground rush at 6000 ft. Jeane, are you coming to Lost Prairie this summer? We need to try another Pop's record.....Steve1

I was talking to an old friend the other night, and we were discussing what it was like way back when. He said that when he first went down to Cassagrand (the gulch) in Arizona, he and several other people didn't even use altimeters. Many just pulled when the ground started looking big. I do recall more than one person doing this back in the early 70's. Remember this was before dytters and almost noone used an AAD way back then. Anyone else out there ever been crazy enough to practice this? Yes, there were a lot of fresh craters at that D.Z. during that time period.....Steve1

1963- I was a bad ass 7th grader then. Back in the days when the thought of jumping out of a plane scared the crap out of me. Adventure was hunting gophers with a pellet gun or 22. Girls were a mystery and considered inferior to us men folk. Back in the days when we listened to records and a little dab of Brilcreem would do ya. Tough guys looked like Fondsie, and my favorite Western was Bonanza....Ahh those were the days.....Steve1

Jeff, I quit for about the same length of time as you did. When I started up again I got my old altimeter out of moth balls and gave it a try. I unscrewed it off the old metal plate that fit on my old belly reserve. It still works just fine for a chest mount. My problem is that I can't read it very easily with my Z-1 on my head. To tell you the truth I almost never look at my chest mount altimeter anymore. I've also got a new wrist altimeter, and I look at it most jumps. I've had people make fun of me for packing two altimeters, but I like to be able to look down at the chest mount when someone has ahold of my wrist in a formation. Others look at it also when I'm doing RW across from them. Maybe I don't need two, but the extra one comes in handy sometimes.....Steve1

I'm really really old. I started before Wendy (I think).....Steve1

I agree, but I don't think that is quite what she had in mind....

I've worked in a school system for the past 21 years. Ten years prior to that I was a logger, falling timber for a living. I know what hard work is all about and I'll tell you teaching school is no picnic. Particularly if you work in a tough school these days. Before working in the education field I used to sling mud at educators too, but I've since done a big 180 on that. The problem with todays schools isn't the damn teachers or principals. Most of the problem in my mind is the damn parents who are neglecting the needs of their kids. Many many kids are coming to school truly mixed up and angry inside. Many have extremely low self esteem. There is a real need to build up the self esteem in these kids, but how do you do that, when Mom and Dad are telling them they are worthless on a regular basis at home. I've seen several canned programs come through the school which claim to build self esteem in kids. They all claim to have statistics to prove their program works, but the bottom line is that there is almost no imperical evidence to prove that any of them even help. I've seen some awards assemblies where nearly every kid gets an award so noone feels bad. The kids soon figure out what a joke this is. You can't gift a feeling of accomplishment, it must be earned or it is meaningless. I'll tell you many kids coming to school today are lacking all kinds of skills that most kids learn at home. That is why the schools are trying to teach so many different things that weren't needed much in the past. So where are parents dropping the ball?? Some are doing a great job and their kids are usually doing well in school. Many of the kids I work with, as a counselor, don't have anyone in their life who even gives a rip about them. Of course many are having trouble concentrating on school work, and many more are discipline problems. Many of these kids have parents that are stoned out of their mind most days. Some are physically, mentally, and even sexually abusive. Lot's of these kids have extremely poor social skills, because they haven't been taught at home the correct way to act. Educators are taking all these trouble kids and doing their best to help them. Of course their test scores may not measure up. And who gets the blame? It's all those rotten, no good teachers and principals! Boy I get tired of hearing that kind of talk......Steve1

Most runs are still really rocky here in Montana. We really need more snow. I haven't been out much yet this year, but still have put some dandy new grooves in the bottom of my skiis. Having a pair of rock skiis sounds like a good plan to me. I think I'm going to make the new ones I have now into just that. Wish I could help you out on your ski repair. I need to have someone look at mine also....Steve1

Walt Mercer was the pilot. I think it was out of Walt's beech that he owned at the time. We have Walt's plack in our club house in Montana with the names Sparky mentioned on it....Steve1

One last picture. No, that's not John Wayne. This was where we jumped in Utah...Up in the Wasatch Range. A very high DZ....

They didn't call us snake eaters for nothing....Here I'm pretending to be a bad ass in my sterile fatigues complete with snake skins. This was after a night jump into southern Texas out of a C-130 black bird....

Gee whiz....Golden Knights were like, what I always wanted to be, but never became....Steve1

Darn, I forgot the picture....here it is.

Here we're jumping in the snow, in Montana, out of H-34 helicopters....

This is my A-team preparing for a night jump in Utah. Some of these guys were scared to jump, but they still jumped every time they stood in the door. Since I was a bad ass skydiver I used to tease some of them over this. Some of the strained looks on some of these faces were from worry....

Yes, those are C-119's out there. I told you I was old....

I've got some old army jump pictures. If you are really bored you might want to see them. This picture was taken when I was going through S.F. weapons training at Bragg, back in 1970. I'm the good looking young feller on the right. The old HALO building is in the background.....Steve1

Nearly all the guns I use are for hunting purposes. About the only target shooting I do with them is making sure they are zeroed or when I'm testing hand loads or the accuracy of a rifle off the bench. I do have a few pistols that I have shot at bad guy targets. I don't imagine this is any worse than the video games some people play. It's all pretend, and makes the shooting a little more fun.....Steve1

It should work fine. I bought one for jumping, but have used it exclusively for skiing. You might want to cut any snag points off of it or tape them.....Steve1