Niki1

Those 7 point adjustable harness would fit most adults but they often were not adjusted properly. But even when they fit, they didn't fit, The belly band on the reserve was what kept everything from moving around. "Nothing makes the "Good Old Days" as good as a bad memory. But maybe we just remember what made the old days good more than what made them difficult. Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossilbe before they were done. Louis D Brandeis Where are we going and why are we in this basket?

Yeah, things falling from the sky can be embarassing. It sounds like the DZ guy did the right thing in this case by fessing up (and theres no such thing as bad publicity

OK, I've got one of those too. 1986 at Musgogee, the Nationals Boogie. Almost everyone from the Pitt Meadows 100 attempts came to Musgogee to give it another try. Five 98 - 99 ways and one unofficial 100. (Also the most awesomly, bitchenest skydive I've ever been a part of but that's another story) The organizing was excellent, the aircraft support and pilots- excellent. Three DC-3s in a comfortably close formation. Tommy Pirus is spotting in the lead plan and he's supposed to throw a yellow WDI to signal the climb out. The plane captains in two wing planes are to wait for the signal and strar the climb out in their respective planes. Tommy, standing in the back of his plane, takes the list of jumpers out of his jumpsuit and says to the plane load, "I don't need this anymore because we're going to do it on this jump!" And with that, he throws the white notebook pages out the door. (You may see where this is headed) The right wing plane sees something thrown from the lead and starts climbing out. Some one in the left wing plane (mine) see the right wing climbing out and starts yelling "CLIMB OUT, CLIMB OUT!!" Mike McGowan is the camara man and he's first out, rear, rear. rear floater. The rest start to climb out. I'm the last one in the straight line at the wall and Joe Nepute, the plane captain looking out the window waiting for the YELLOW streamer to be thrown, looks over his shoulder. looks up at me and says, 'What are they climbing out for?" By now, Mike McGowan had been out there for a few minutes and he finally cannot hang on any longer. Mike is one strong, determined individual and he probably held on twice as long as anyone else could. When the right wing plane saw some one in freefall, they started exiting. When our plane saw the right wing exiting, people started yelling, "GO, GO, GO!!!!" and we started exiting. I follow my guy down about half way of what I thought we would go and he's looking back up past me, I slide in and dock on his left with a wrist grip and look back up where he's looking and I see, way, way up there is the base 10 way. oops. After landing, I gathered my stuff up to go back to the packing area and on the way I was asking people, "Did they make it?" like I was no part of the Chaos. We made the first 100 way on the next dive the next morning. Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossilbe before they were done. Louis D Brandeis Where are we going and why are we in this basket?

Taught? I just read a comic book. That's the thing about common sense.... it's no where near as common as people think Must have been an "Action Comics" book?

Who taught you to jump? Didn't they give you the "Ignore Common Sence" block of instruction?

There was a Carol Christenson in DeLand for quite a while. Don't know where she came from but I think she got her Master Rigger ticket thare. Can't remember where she went. Not much information but hey, it was the '70, man.

You're right of course. I remember now, after reading your reply, that wear on the cones was the problem. I'm not a rigger and it's been a long time. Most kids today would be horrified if they ever saw a set of cones, or the bungees we used to hook up, or almost anything else we used to jump. I just wouldn't jump a piggyback in those days, not until the "Wonderhog" generation of rigs came along at the end of the seventies. I started jumping a piggyback with about 100 jumps. It was a lot more conveinent (not having 2 seperate pieces of equipment) and a LOT easier moving around in the plane. 500 jumps or so later, Bill (T-Bow) Smith put the logic to it. "Why, when it means the most, be in freefall in an unfamiliar, unpracticed body postion?" Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossilbe before they were done. Louis D Brandeis Where are we going and why are we in this basket?

Pitt Meadows east of Vancouver, BC. Snow capped mountains to the north as far as you can see, a river that runs east to west with an island in the middle, and 97 - 99 ways above it. At least there was when I was there.

I think Rod Serling wrote a few episodes of Twilight Zone with this gererel theam. Most of them turned out bad as I recall. Like someone else saed here, I've been ahead of my time most of my life.

remember the movie Fried Green Tomatoes? It was based on The Whistlestop Cafe restaurant in Irondale, next to Birmingham, just a short drive down the interstate from my home. I've had it several times, but not in that restaurant. If you go there, avoid the barbecue.

Who trained him? Was his jumpmaster accused of "tossing midgets?"

Didn't some folks replace their lead stops with knoted rubber bands based on the theory that the rubber band could be compressed and would pull thru the ripcoard housing or something. Anyone know about the rubber band "upgrade".? Did they work if caught on the reserve? I'm guessing not since we didn't see many. But ks was always outside the mainstream. Yeah, that theory was just that. A theory. Didn't work in the real world. By the way. To TBrown, I didn't mean to combine the comments about the blast handle and the Jesus Cord. 2 separate comments. I should have made that more clear. Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossilbe before they were done. Louis D Brandeis Where are we going and why are we in this basket?

Those are all grrat. I wonder if I can afford a toumbstone large enough for all of them. I don't thimk I'll mimd being dead. It's the dying part I'd like to avoid. "Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die" Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossilbe before they were done. Louis D Brandeis Where are we going and why are we in this basket?

QuoteI really don't want anything to go right today, so please send me all your bad vibes and help make this happen. reply] Save bitting the head off the frog until the end of the day. Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossilbe before they were done. Louis D Brandeis Where are we going and why are we in this basket?

I'd say either: I know half of you half as well as I'd like to and I like half of you half as well as you deserve. or Treat each other excellently and party on Dude!! Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossilbe before they were done. Louis D Brandeis Where are we going and why are we in this basket?

Blast handles got a bad reputation from people who didn't understand how to use them. They were designed to be uses as a male part that was inserted into a fitting on the end of the ripcord housing. Useing it like this, the center post didn't affect anyting. BUT if it was used as a female part, that is inserting the housing into the blast handle, the ceter post was then inside the housing with the spring on the outside. This required a straight in line pull if the housing was tacked down close to the end. Or you could tack the housing 3" or 4" from the end and then there would be enought flexibility above the outside spring and inside center post to pull in any direction. Mine blast handle had the center post drilled out and I tacked 3" from the end. Used it 3 times without a problem. I also saw a friend go down to 500' trying to pull his. He finally got out and when he got back to the packing area, he was pretty embarrassed because he had been "meaning to get that drilled out" for a while. I don't know if Gary Dupuis invented the Last Hope Rope or not but he was putting it on the rigs he built in the early '70s. At an Easter Meet, '71 I think, he showed it to Steve Snyder and Snyder thought that was pretty slick. About 6 months later, Snyder is in DeLand and shows Gary his Jesus Cord. Gary says, (those of you who know Gary can hear him) "You ain't had no malfuctions, have you?" Snyder says, "Well no but how did you know." Gary says, "Because you're still alive." He then picks up Snyders rig by the reserve ripord and swings it in a big circle. Snyder, D-5 had not left ANY slack in the lanyard. Just goes to show ya that nobody's bullitproof. Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossilbe before they were done. Louis D Brandeis Where are we going and why are we in this basket?

I had a similar experience in high school. A buddy breaks up with a girl. He's hanging out at my house one evening (the folks are out) and the phone rings. We hear giggling and then a dial tone. This happens several times and then the buddy has an idea. I had an Acme Thunderer whistle. You know, the kind that hurt your ears in the locker room when the coach told you to get your butt out on the field. The next time the phone rings he picks it up and lets loose with a blast from the whistle and hangs up. We're laughing our asses off when the phone rings again. Still laughing, I answer it. My sister, who lived accross town says, "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!!" 00ps Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossilbe before they were done. Louis D Brandeis Where are we going and why are we in this basket?

I read a thing about the several stages of being drunk. I can't remember it all but it started with brilliant; everything you think of is of genius level. Caarmming; you know that you're the most debonair guy in the room. I don't remember the other stages except that it ended with bulletproof. If anyone knows all the stages, I'd like to see them. By the way, I think I'm a talkitive drunk. But you'd have to ask the other people if that's all.

Hey, Bill When I moved to DeLand in '83, the house I lived in had a well. The water tasted a LOT better than Jacksonville where I had grown up and had been living. The quality seemed to go down over the years though and no one seemed to notece much less exp;ain it. Then in '87 or '88 we had a real cold spell, (for Florida anyway) below freezing for most of the night. That morning, I'm taking a shower and I feel SAND in the bottom of the shower. I got a mouthful and found that the water was bringing the sand in. I thought I must have a pump problem but later I learned that the ferneries around Volusia County had sucked up all the water from the aquifer to spray the plants to protect them from freezing. The DeLand Aquifer has never been the same since. With more developement, there is less recharge area to let water to filter back into the aquifer. So now the city water, which comes from the same source but is treated, tastes better that the well water. In '95 or so I moved in and started sharring a house with Sue Lebchruker (sp, sorry Sue) and she told me that I should consider drinking only bottled water. I held up my beer and said, "Most of what I drink is bottled."

There was a time I was getting shorter every day. I got to be a "2 Digit Midget" and the day before I went back to the world, I was so short I could sit on a cigarette paper and dangle my legs. Hey! What's this pork chop doing around my neck?

It seems like a lot of mid-level managers think this is something they learned in business school... or when they read about business school... in a book.

reply] I knew someone whose nickname was blister - he always appeared when the work had been done Some people have a knack for good timming.

That new blue light that they are using I think is the really beautiful. Especially when the cop has pulled someone ELSE over.

Couple a beers short of a six pack, Isn't he? Couple of sandwiches short of a picnic. Don't have both oars in the eater. A few bricks short of a load. A few sandwiches short of a picnic. That dog don't hunt. (A bad idea) Smart as a box of rocks, (or Sack of hammers) And my favorite: His silder dosen't come all the way down. Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossilbe before they were done. Louis D Brandeis Where are we going and why are we in this basket?

David Carridene should gone skydiving instead. Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossilbe before they were done. Louis D Brandeis Where are we going and why are we in this basket?