250 Words on Skydiving

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Monday until I run out of good ones.]

I parachuted out of a plane three times, which I am proud of because most people quit after one. 

I was in college. The jump school at the tiny airport—so tiny I once I drove my car onto the runway thinking it was a road—was operated out of a ramshackle hut by a grizzled Korean War paratrooper, George, who warmed his classes with an oil drum fire he fueled by squirting gasoline into it.

These days, I understand novice skydivers jump from 10,000 feet in tandem, an instructor strapped to their backs. Back then we jumped solo from 3,000 feet, using a static line that opened our chutes for us. Over time, you’d demonstrate the form and skill needed to jump from higher altitudes and pull your own ripcord. 

I didn’t advance that far. 

A year or two after my third jump, when I still hadn’t entirely retired the idea of jumping again someday, George died in a skydiving accident. He’d been sitting near the open door of the plane when the emergency chute on his chest popped open and caught the wind. In jump school he’d taught us that, if that happens, you immediately leap out the door after it. George didn’t, his chute tangled in the tail, and he fell to his death.

I figured that if my jumpmaster sensei could go out like that, I wouldn’t have stood a chance, and that was the end of my skydiving adventure. It was glorious while it lasted.