primetime

Nope. Your Reverend Jim is too young. How many skydiving clergymen do you suppose there are, anyways? They could start a new club like POPS and call it the JOJ...Jumpers for Jesus.

One winter at the DZ, I was bragging about my plans for a new rig. When I mentioned that I was going to have “666” embroidered on one of the mud flaps, Todd’s eyes lit up. A few weeks later, Todd's new Javelin arrived in the mail. He opened up the package in front of everyone like it was X-mas morning. On the yoke, it said, “The Last Limey.” (long story) And I was shocked to see that he had a neon-green “666” on the mud flap. Todd had stolen my idea! The bastard! However, this story has a happy ending. It was a couple of years later, at the WFFC in Quincy. We were riding to altitude, and I noticed that there was a priest sitting next to Todd. We were on the same load as a freefall wedding. The groom wore a black rig and a tuxedo jumpsuit. The bride was dressed in white lace, including veil, and her custom white rig had lace sewn onto the container. The priest was a middle-aged skydiver with a normal black jumpsuit, into which he had inserted his white priest collar. He had a purple silk scarf around his neck, some kind of holy vestment. He firmly clutched a bible in one hand. I pointed the priest out to Todd, and then reminded him that he had the Number of the Beast on his mud flap. For the first time in my life, I saw Todd become uncomfortable in a social situation. His face reddened. He covered the “666” with his hand. I upped the ante and introduced myself to the priest. He told me a little bit about the marriage ceremony he was going to perform in freefall. Tom Sanders was shooting the video. I told the priest that my friend Todd had the Devil’s Number stitched onto his rig. Todd stared daggers at me. The priest started laughing, and Todd started breathing again. We soon realized that the "man of the cloth" had a great sense of humor. Todd put on his full-face helmet, which had a $500 paint job of an evil dragon, with rows of teeth around the face shield. We got some hilarious pictures of Todd and the priest arm-in-arm, looking at each other. The priest is holding up his bible, and he has a mock-frightened look on his face, pretending to be afraid of the heathen scum. You could easily see the “666” on Todd’s rig, and through the tinted visor of his helmet, you could just make out his grinning face and squinty eyes. A couple of years later, I discovered that it had been a fake wedding. The groom was Harry Parker, noted skydiver and B.A.S.E. jumper. They were creating an advertisement for Sun Path, makers of the Javelin. But it didn’t lessen the enjoyment of the story one bit for Todd and I. I used to have some photos of Todd and the priest...I wish I still had them. Postscript—Years later, when Todd started working with students, MB (chief instructor) made him go over the “666” with a black magic marker to lessen its visibility.

GONE FOR 11 MONTHS, STILL HARD TO BELIEVE... Early on in Todd’s career, before he fully converted to skydiving, he had been equally obsessed with flying airplanes and jumping out of them. One day, he asked if I wanted to do a hop-n-pop, and film him flying his favorite airplane, 20-Bravo, also known as “the school bus,” for its lemon-yellow paint job. I said hell no. Then Todd said that I could use his canopy, AND he’d pay for the jump. I should have been immediately suspicious, but who can turn down a free jump? I said hell yes. Todd took me up to 4,000 ft. It was just the two of us. I put on Todd’s video helmet, bailed out, and deployed right away. As soon as the canopy was open, I realized what an idiot I was. Todd was the craziest pilot I knew, and I had just made myself a stationary target...a sitting duck. I thought about cutting away and pulling the reserve low to the ground. I also considered burying a toggle and spinning down, but the canopy was Todd’s 220 sq. ft. Fury—big and slow. I heard the buzz of the Cessna engine grow louder behind me. I winced and prepared for the worst. The first fly-by wasn’t too menacing. He flew by on-level, and waved to me as he passed. Next, he tried some funky maneuvers for the camera: loops, barrel-rolls, even an Immelmann. On each pass, the airplane seemed dangerously close to my frail little body. Finally, Todd flew towards the runway, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I had somehow come through unscathed. I began thinking about how good the beer was going to taste that night. Then I heard the Cessna again. Todd was coming back for one last fly-by. He approached from directly behind me, in my blind spot. I swiveled my head left and right, trying to catch sight of him. The airplane zoomed under my dangling legs and pulled up right in front of me, showing me the tops of the wings. Maybe it hadn’t been that close, but I actually lifted my feet so they wouldn’t hit the propeller. After that last death-defying pass, Todd raced the plane to the ground. When I touched down in the landing area with shaky knees, Todd was waiting for me. He ran up and patted me on the back, laughing his ass off at my pale, sweaty face. I was too scared to be mad, but I swore I’d never let him trick me like that again...until the next time.

LARRY "SPARKY" LANG A skydiving friend died four years ago today, on July 4th, 2005. And I just realized that even though he didn't die while skydiving, he could still have a memorial page. Larry Lang was from Stratford, WI. He was better known to the skydiving world simply as Sparky. He amassed 678 total jumps from the years 1993-2004. He was a regular fixture at the World Freefall Conventions, though known more for his ground antics than anything he did in the air. He acquired the nickname Sparky on his ninth static-line jump. He landed his canopy in some power lines, knocking out power to half the town. No sh*t, there I was... Blue skies, black death, bro. Dying of natural causes is for pussies! More later...

I think the 2-for-1 helicopter jumps were later that week. It was a great whirlybird...a big old Sikorsky SK58. Great fun from two grand. Todd and I and some others did chunk a 4-way from 3,000 that day, but I think we only turned two points. Four points sounds better. You know how skydivers are...ask me again in a couple of years, and I'll swear it was eight points.

One of Todd’s biggest “hero” moments... It was August 10, 2004, one of the middle days of the World Freefall Convention in Rantoul. Low clouds had socked in the airport, and after one or two hop-n-pop loads out of Mullins’ King Air, nobody was jumping. It looked like the beer light was going to come on early. And for some, it already had. It was also the year of the American debut of the PAC 750 XL, the first airplane specifically designed for skydiving. Todd and I grabbed our rigs and strolled over to the PAC tent. Ray Ferrell said that he couldn’t find enough jumpers to get his plane off the ground. Todd said: “I have an idea. Offer two hop-n-pops for the price of one jump ticket, and you’ll have people begging to get on your airplane.” Ray and his crew looked skeptical, but Todd persevered. “Trust me,” he said, “If there’s one thing I know, it’s skydivers.” The PAC tent announced over the PA system that they were offering two-for-one jumps from 3,000 feet, and as Todd predicted, jumpers came running. The PAC 750 (the one with the red-yellow-and-blue paint job) was running nonstop loads up to the cloud deck. I think they flew over fifty hop-n-pop loads, half of them from 2,500 or less. Bob Stumm did ten hop-n-pops; Todd and I ripped off five or so apiece. And the people on the ground were treated to ten reserve rides in a six-hour period (luckily, with no injuries). The PAC 750 was a hit. The load organizers challenged the Wissota crew to prove their “alleged” accuracy skills. They set a two-foot-diameter hula hoop in front of tent #1, and Todd, Bob, and I stomped the disk--one, two, three. Then we went back up and did it again. This time, the organizers tied a string to the hula hoop, and they tried jerking it away as we landed. However, they misjudged the speeds of our approaches, and all three of us hit the target a second time. Bob even snagged his foot on the hula hoop, dragging it a few feet before stumbling to a stand-up landing. Best of all, on our second accuracy load, Todd swooped in completely naked, in front of five hundred semi-drunk and fully-drunk spectators. People were laughing, cheering, and partying like it was Mardi Gras...all because of Todd. Todd had taken what had started out as the worst day of the 2004 Convention, and single-handedly turned it into one of the most memorable days in the history of the world’s biggest boogie. He was one cool motherfu*#er. Coda: The next year, Todd and I were lucky enough to be part of the world’s first formation load using two PAC 750 aircraft. The 20-way took place at East Troy, WI, on October 29, 2005.

I saw the new Star Trek film today. During the movie, I kept thinking of Todd. He was a total sci-fi geek, and he would have been all over that sh#t. I can totally hear Todd laughing about the skydive sequence, where Kirk and Sulu freefall from outer space. He would have made fun of their batwing parachutes (which look like the Precision Batwing canopies that Todd and I used to think were lame). He would also have laughed at the self-packing chutes, and Captain Kirk's horrible canopy control skills.

RANDOM FUNNY MEMORIES OF TODD...AKA TOAD, TODDLEY, ZIPPERHEAD, FORREST, THE LAST LIMEY *Finding Todd passed out in the back of the roadshow bus in the winter, using a road map for a blanket. *Todd once got drunk and ate a bucketful of strawberries that Bob had left at the DZ. Then he puked up the whole mess by the front door. The next morning, Todd tried to deny it, despite the massive red stain down the front of his white t-shirt. *As a joke, I slipped 2 cans of dog food into Todd's grocery cart at Quincy. He paid for them anyways, and ate them for dinner back at the campsite, proud of how much money he was saving. *Todd borrowed my Xaos, and he broke his wrist swooping Bob on the golf cart. He didn't tell anyone about his injury, because he was manifested for the next tandem video. In the subsequent video, you can hear him whimper in pain as he reaches for the toggles. Todd landed on the cross runway so no one could see his ugly half-flare landing. *One time Bob was driving down the DZ driveway, and he saw Todd on the roof of the old clubhouse. Todd was stealing the old T.V. antenna from the roof, so he could install it at home. "What the hell are you doing?" Bob yelled up to him. Todd replied, "It's just going to waste up here."

This is perhaps my favorite memory of Todd... At one of the first World Freefall Conventions in Quincy, Todd repeatedly bragged about a new tent he had “picked up,” a gigantic Army-surplus model with multiple rooms. He said it had a bedroom, a guest room, probably even a bathroom. It took Todd half the night to pitch the olive-green tent. When he was finished, we all had to admit that it was an impressive shelter. It even had a screened-in porch, and an awning over the entrance. A couple of nights later, a big storm rolled through tent city. Everyone’s tent made it through unscathed...except for Todd’s, which had collapsed and flooded. With only one tent pole left standing, it looked like a teepee. Undaunted, Todd crawled inside his tent, tiptoeing through the flooded areas. With the rest of the crew laughing and pointing, Todd wiggled into a sitting position against the surviving tent pole. You could actually see the outline of his head and shoulders inside of the burlap cocoon. Then, a light clicked on inside the ruined tent. Todd was reading one of his Star Wars books in there! Postscript – He slept in that damned teepee the rest of the week. Still miss ya, buddy...

No funny stories this month... When Matt J. posted two pictures from Todd's last jump (see previous post), it was a sobering reminder of the dangers inherent in skydiving. It saddened me to see a photo of my best friend's lovable mug, taken less than two minutes before it was pummeled beyond recognition. Hopefully, we can all learn from tragedies such as this, especially those of us who feel the need to swoop. For me personally, Todd's death may have saved my life. I have drastically altered how I plan and execute my landings. Don't get me wrong, I still like to go big, but there's a time and a place for everything. Those who live by the sword, die by the sword. There's no need to land at Mach speeds on every single jump--it's not fair to those in the air with you, and it's not fair to those you potentially leave behind. Let's be careful out there... Blue Skies, Black Coffee

Six months already... One of my favorite memories of Todd took place during our only pilgrimage to Nationals. The scene was Chicago, 2002. We were having trouble engineering a dive, so Todd asked Shannon Pilcher for help. Keep in mind that Shannon was Skygod #1 at this point; he had just set a new world record for long-distance swoop, and he was alternate on 4-way team Deland Majik. So Todd sauntered up to Shannon. The rest of the team watched as Todd nodded his metal-plate-laden head, receiving a quick word of advice. When Todd came back, I said, "Did you talk to him like that?" His rebuttal was, "Yeah, why?" Apparently, just before confronting Shannon, Todd had been eating barbeque chicken. A lot of it. He had barbeque sauce smeared from ear to ear. He looked like a scary clown. And there were so many chunks of chicken hanging from his chin, his face could literally have fed a family. I told Todd to go look in a mirror, and when he came back, he had scrubbed his face clean. It was the only time I ever saw him embarrassed. My other fond memory from Nationals...the tenth and final round of 4-way competition. Todd and I filled the Otter with toxic flatulence to "get an edge on the other teams." Luckily, another team in the airplane, Juggernaut, with our friends Duck and Malibu Jim, tuned us out (and plugged their Factory Diver nose holes) long enough to take first place in our division. Blue Skies, Black Death

JEDEI MASTER You started out a pilot, but soon felt the call to spend every weekend in the realm of freefall. Your stinky feet could clear a room, when you broke wind, it was a sonic boom. Coach and mentor, instructor and rigger, hook turn and BASE jump, whose balls were bigger? Rantoul and Quincy, our August escape, skydives and boobs caught on videotape. Jedei Master, fashion disaster, swooping machine, lover of Green. You left this dimension the way you'd desire; swooping Mach Two with your hair on fire. Your ashes now scattered across the Earth; the memories you left, a lifetime's worth.

4 MONTHS AFTER TODD... Toad's awesome fiancee Lynn sent me a package last week containing the Todd memorial DVD. A heartfelt thank you goes out to all who were involved in its creation... The "picture show," edited by Jamie and Sean, was great. Ironically, the last picture in the montage, of Todd swooping his canopy at sunset as it fades to his name and birth/death dates, is really a pic of me flying my Gang Green-colored Vengenace. The "video show," made by Karl and Merriah Eakins, looks very professional, and has a wide range of footage from both ground and air. Video of the ash dive, taken by RWS, MB, and Kerry, was also much appreciated. Kudos to MP for constructing the release bag. When I watch footage from the close-up angle in slow-motion, I can see shards of bone leave the bag. I know, I'm sick...Todd of all people would have appreciated it. The package from Lynn also contained a t-shirt and two "Didja C Me?" patches, to be sewn to jumpsuits in memory of Todd. I'm putting my patch on my ass, since Todd loved to grab male or female buttocks in freefall whenever he wore his helmet cam. I should sew the patch right over my leather cheerio, because for some reason, whenever Todd grabbed ass in FF, his thumb made a bullseye right in the center... The t-shirt, which has a grim reaper on it, was from Quincy 1999, the day of the Friday the 13th Jet Jumps. I used to give Todd a hard time and tell him the shirt was a lie, because the jet had been weathered out that day. Lynn warned me that the t-shirt was dirty. When I pulled it out of the package, Alicia said it looked pretty clean for a cream-colored shirt. Then I told her that it had originally been pure white...

3 MONTHS A.T... It's awesome that Todd was an organ donor, and his skin was used for breast reconstruction surgery. I wonder how many pairs they got out of the skinny bastard. Now, whenever I look at a woman's breasts in Wisconsin, I'll wonder if it's Todd. And if the woman busts me ogling her melons, I can say, "I thought you were someone I know."

I can't believe it's already been a year since Beezy left us. I miss my friend and mentor. I miss celebrating his birthday at Quincy every year, and later Rantoul. I miss his stories, told the way only he could tell them. I can still hear his voice in my head sometimes: big, loud, and oozing Southern charm. His great guffaw of a laugh. One year at the Mardi Gras boogie in Moss Point, I showed up at the DZ at two in the morning. As soon as I walked up to the bonfire, Beezy yelled my name in that distinctive voice. I instantly knew that the weekend would be unforgettable. The pictures are still hidden in a safe deposit box. In my skydiving dreams, Beezy and Chris Martin are my wingmen. Blue skies, my brother...

I can't believe it's already been 2 months since Todd scratched off the big-way called life... Rest in Peace, bro. You've earned it.

It sounds like Todd's logbooks were a hit at Baldwin. They are hilarious. I used to read them on rainy weekends at the dz. He would always write how awesome and fast he was. Everyone's logbook was fair game. If you forgot yours at the dz, Todd usually enhanced it with an entry or two. Here's an entry I found in my logbook from 1999: "Todd is so good. Best ever. Wow! I wish I could be like him."

It takes away the hurt a little bit, knowing that skydivers will be destroying brain cells in Todd's name from coast to coast this weekend...New York, Los Angeles, Mississippi, Tennessee, and his home turf of Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota. Here's one of the stories I'll be telling...The demo in Phillips, when Todd and I planned to entertain the whuffos with a downplane. Instead, we had a canopy wrap, my first and only, and at low altitude, but Todd was calm in the saddle and talked me through a clean separation. The crowd was totally in awe. One of the old-timer pilots approached Todd and said, "That was quite a stunt. You had some of those guys fooled into thinking something was wrong." Todd threw his trademark smirk and said, "I planned that. Wasn't it awesome?"

Alicia and I regret not being able to make Baldwin today for the Todd tribute, so we're doing the next best thing. We are having a West Coast Todd Jacobson Memorial...we're supplying green bottles for the dz bonfire, and I'm gonna hoist a few beers and tell some tall tales starring Todd. Does anyone know when Todd's ash dive is going to be? The attached pics are from the WFFC website. I wish I could attach ten-year-old VHS tapes... Erik Prime

Todd Jacobson loved skydiving more than anyone I've ever met. He truly was a skygod. Here's a list of some of his many accomplishments as a veteran of 17 years and 5200+ jumps: 1. 4-WAY RW: With team Gang Green, Todd won four gold medals in AAA class of the Northern Plains League (2002-2005), and competed at the 2002 U.S. Nationals (14th place out of 37 teams). In 2006, he jumped with team Wissota Shockers, earning a silver medal in AA class. 2. RATINGS: AFF I, S/L I, senior rigger, S & TA, videographer extrordinaire, private pilot. 3. WFFC LOAD ORGANIZER: He was an organizer at the World Freefall Convention for 10 glorious years. We used to joke that he had enough jumps in Quincy and Rantoul for his 1,000 jump gold wings. The lucky bastard also had 7 or 8 Boeing 727 jet jumps. 4. SPEED STAR: He was on the team that won the 10-way speed star competition every year at WFFC. Others filled their teams with ringers, but the team Todd jumped with was never beaten. 5. NIGHT: Todd had 50+ night jumps, including a CRW 3-stack. 6. NAKED: He had well over 50 naked jumps, including night, winter, and multi plane formations. He loved the shock value. He even organized a few nude 20-way loads at Quincy. 7. BASE: He had about 20 fixed-object jumps, all radio towers except for 2 Bridge Day leaps. 8. DEMOS: He was a perennial favorite on Bob Stumm's "A-team" for demonstration jumps into airshows, football and baseball games, and local schools. 9. HIGH WING LOADING: Todd loved small canopies. He had multiple jumps on a 69-square foot Xaos, and one on Craig's 63-sq Icarus. 10. Y2K: He did his 2,000th jump at midnight on New Year's Eve 2000--in the bitter Wiscosin cold. The list goes on and on...Birdman, Mr. Bill, big ways, CRW, pond swooping. Todd aka Zipperhead was up for anything aeronautically related, anytime, anywhere. Blue skies, black death. Save me a spot by the fire, my friend. Time for a whiskey.