Shhh, Don't Tell Anybody...

I'm not sure if I've mentioned before why I blog. It's less of an exercise in vanity and more of one of humility, as well as memory. The fact that it serves my Id is a great by-product but not my primary reason.

My end goal, if you will, is one day when I'm dead and gone my daughter will have something to remember me by. Granted this may be more of a high-brow ideal than the contents of the site can provide.

All the same, it's my voice, and to the best of my recollection it is the truth as I have experienced it.

I can't say it started out this way. Initially I started blogging when Google bought Blogger and offered the free "Blog This" link on the Google Toolbar. I thought I'd give Blogger a second go around. The first time was in the late 90's when Blogger was just starting out. I signed up for an account just after I read an article about how blogging was supposed to be "IT" on the 'net. I posted three paragraphs and ditched it. Being verbally handicapped-- writing, especially when I didn't have too, rated up there with anal wart removal with a pair of wire snips.

But here I am. Digging up stuff I thought I'd long forgotten. Stories, secrets, recipes, dirty laundry, and anything else that wakes up in my head and says "Hey Mark, did you ever tell RZ about...".

All of this being said, I offer up the latest memory du jour.

This is about one of those times I actually set out to make a memory. I was in my early twenties, I had ZERO responsibilities and I was gleefully stupid. I wanted to do something I could impress women (and eventually my great-great-grandkids) with. After much fore-thought and careful consideration, I decided to take up sky-diving.

Now a days, that's not such a monumental thing. You simply decide you want to jump, you then strap somebody on your back who knows how and what to do with a parachute and you hop in a plane. It's little more than The Great Gasp at Six Flags.

When I learned to jump (this is when you roll your eyes and say something about walking to school with barefeet in the snow, over broken glass), there was no such thing as tandem. No, I had to go through frikin' Jump School. Hours of bust-ass training, parachute landing falls, and the ominous "...if your chute fails to open..." protocol being drilled into my skull.

After all of that training I was better prepared to be a Special Ops Combat Soldier than at any other point in my life.

Anyway, after several hours of ground training it's time for us ("us" being my brothers in fearless pursuit of our manhood) to "Suit Up!". Suit up entailed dressing up in a nylon suit and a ridiculous helmet. The suit I figured was to contain the contents of your colon if anxiety got the best of you. The helmet, must've been a scoop for the guy who would have to go out and retrieve what was left of you "...If your chute fails to open..." and you hit the ground at 126 miles per hour and forget to bounce... The helmet was useless.

So I'm suited up. I'm in a nylon "bag" that is seven sizes to large for me, and a good for nothing bowl on my head. I look like one of those idiot clowns from Cirque du Soleil. What I haven't mentioned so far is that it was August. In Georgia. It was hell hot. It was particularly brutally hot that day.

Anyway... There's me, four other guys, and the Jump Master (the guy who trained us) waiting in the 104 degree heat, in our nylon outfit bag uniforms, and our brain scoops waiting for the plane to land.

The plane finally touches down and pulls around for us to load up.

This is where the warning lights finally start flashing in my head. Mentally I noted them and through proper ground training ignored them.

The plane was a little Cessna 172 that had been gutted of its interior, save for the bucket (literally) that the pilot was sitting on. The door to the plane has been reconditioned so that the hinge is on top and at altitude is supposed to get out of the way of the jumpers.

We ALL load into the plane. Then the plane powers up to full throttle and it bumps and sputters its way across the pasture. Finally as we're closing in on the oaks at the end of the field we leave the ground. Barely clearing the trees.

In what I recall as being the worst, most terror filled twenty-five minutes of my life we finally get to altitude. 13,500 feet. I guess it took forever because of the weight in the plane, and the density (or lack of) of the hot summer air.

The pilot nods to the Jump Master, signaling that were over the drop-zone. He un-hitches the door and it flings up and open. 75 to 85 mile an hour winds blow in. I hold on for dear life, fearing that my chute might open at any second and drag my upper torso (only) out the plane. It's like what I imagine a hurricane to be like... extreme wind... extreme noise... and panic. Frenzied panic.

The Jump Master signals to the first jumper and yells "ON THE STRUT". That's the jumper's command to crawl out onto the strut that supports the wing and hold on until your instructed to let go and freefall.

"DROP!!!"

And with that one syallable that guy has vanished. That part was, and still is disturbing and I don't know why. I digress.

Then the Jump Master looks at the second jumper and yells "ON THE STRUT". Number two crawls over me then scurries out onto the wing.

"DROP!!!" And blink he's gone.

The Jump Master then turns his attention to me and yells "ON THE STRUT". This is where things start getting foggy. "JUMPER!!! ON THE STRUT!!! NOW!!!" I look at him square in the eyes as if to say "Gee Mommy, will you get me a cup of milk. My dog's name is Missy." He's looking at me as if he's saying "Dude are you all right? You don't look too good." Then he says again louder, "JUMPER NUMBER THREE!!! ON THE STRUT!!!" And with that command, my right hand reaches into the wind, out the open door and leads my body to the strut.

At this point I'm in total sensory-overload. My brain has just kissed me on the cheek, waved good-bye and said "Fuck this. I'll see you on the ground. Good luck." I'm running on a brain-stem level of cognizance.

So I'm hanging on the underside of the wing. My whole body is limp except for the steel grip I have on the strut. I... well my body anyway, is flailing in the gale-force breeze like a sheet in the wind, my head is bouncing around like a bubbles in a drain.

"DROP!"

I do nothing.

"JUMPER DROP!!!" He orders.

Still, I offer no response. I'm paralyzed in fear.

"JUMPER NUMBER 3... DROP NOW!!!" He screams.

Finally it registers that I need to let go, and I do.

I can't remember anything until the parachute opened and the voice of the lady who was going to talk me down came over the radio in my helmet--an angelic voice for sure.

I blanked out.

No freefall, no memories for the great-grandkids, all of that time, effort, sweat, and money for nothing. I did get to see Stone Mountain-- 30 miles or so off in the distance. That and the landing is about the only things I DO recall.

By far, this is the most intense fear I have ever experienced.

After everyone had landed safely, we met with the Jump Master for him to critique our jump and sign our log book. "I thought you had broken your neck" he said to me as he was summing up my performance. "I ain't ever seen anybody's head move like that... You au-ight?" To which I said... "Did yOU SEE MY LANDING!? ...ON MY FEET! MAN WHAT AN INCREDIBLE RUSH! I AM ON TOP... I... I RULE THE WORLD!!!"

Of course, later I was lauded as a brave, courageous, "man amongst men" to everyone I shared the not-so-true version of the jump with. An American hero, without question.

Truth is... I wet my pants. Thankfully, I was covered in so much sweat that nobody ever figured it out.