Skydiving Cleveland

A Good Day To Die

A Good Day to Die!

Nearly everything I've ever done has scared me. Going on a job interview. Calling that hot chick for a date. Signing on the crooked line for a mortgage. At eight years old Dad came home and said he had signed my brother and me up for baseball at the park, and I remember thinking, "I wish you hadn't done that, I don't know how to play baseball." So where'd I get the stones to reach down, take one in each hand, man up, and jump out of an airplane? Was it the midlife crisis of a gray-whiskered fifty-six-year-old? The frustration of shaving the featureless face of a wuss? The boredom brought on by the mundaneries of a white bread, middle class, suburban life? Having no classes to teach this summer I had settled into an uninspiring routine. Oatmeal for breakfast. Check my e-mail. Mow the yard, mulch the flowerbeds, whack the weeds. Pick up my dry cleaning. Grab some groceries. Have lunch. Water seal my deck. Replace my car's headlight bulb. Clean out the garage. Eat supper. Watch TV. Yawn, yawn. Every day the same old thing - breathe, breathe, breathe.

The Lakota tribes of the 1800s entered battle with a scream. "Hoka hey!" they'd shout. [translation: "It's a good day to die!"] Actually, that's bad strategy for victory. As General George Patton once noted, nobody won a war by dieing for his country, they did it by making the other poor bastard die for his. The essence of 'hoka hey', as I understand it, is that now is a great time to take life to its extreme. I wasn't within three counties of that. You needed a telescope to see the extreme from my place. To get there push would have to come to shove.

Years ago in another city a friend and I often talked about taking the once-a-month Saturday sky diving class at the local airport, but always had a convenient excuse. "I'd love to, Doug, but I have to work this weekend." "Sorry, Jer, I signed my son and myself up for a golf outing." I'm sure we both kept an excuse polished up in case one was needed. But now I had nobody to bluff but myself. I hadn't told anyone I was planning to do it because intending to do something sometimes seems like enough. At least then you can fool yourself into thinking you got close. Before leaving home, I washed my dishes and vacuumed my carpets. If push did come to shove, shove came to drop, and drop came to splat, I didn't want to leave my family too much of a mess to clean up. On my desk I left my obituary and my will, in case I died, and my living will, in case I didn't.

After viewing a video presentation on the futility of filing a lawsuit in the event of a mishap and then signing away my rights to do so, I suited up and went through jump training. Pre-jump orientation involved a ten minute overview of technique, spoken as matter-of-fact as a lesson in fly fishing. "You're gonna step out of the plane onto this ledge." I am, huh? "Just hold on to your harness. Don't grab the door 'cause it'll close. Don't grab anything on the front panel 'cause you'll turn the plane off." No need to say that twice. "Grab onto your harness and curl forward. When we clear the plane arch your back. I'll tap your shoulder, and then let go of the harness and hold your arms out. You're flying. Then relax. Gravity will do the rest." I was familiar with ground level gravity, but I figured it worked much harder at 9, 500 feet.

By Jerry Heckler - A humble man with much to be humble about, doing his best to succeed on the trip from this world to the next.