It was the day after and every muscle…nose to toes…was hurtin bad. We’ll get to the reason for that shortly but first….. lets start with the start to the day before. That day before started very very early as the mornings destination of Orange Massachusetts was a fair drive away. I was anxious and I fairly bounded down the stairs from my third floor tenement to jump into the 67 Dodge Dart and get going. As I slammed the door shut the side view mirror dropped like a rock to shatter in the road and I sincerely hoped this was not some sort of omen before speeding off, leaving the glass in the road .
The Dodge Darts destination that morning was, after all, the Orange Mass. Parachute Center where I was to perform my first static line jump from 3000 ft. and so had little need of omens. .
After finalizing our classroom training that morning one of the instructors asked….
“ Who wants to jump first ? “ This was pre tandem jump days that are so popular today meaning you were on your own the second the body left the aircraft . And so I earned the respect of the instructors and other eight trainees by blurting out…..
“ Yeah….I do “ and no one suspected the truth. And the truth was that I figured if I watched others leap out of the aircraft first …..I’d be too terrified to go through with it. So in short order we all sat on the floor of the aircraft with our knees under our chins and my piece of floor was next to the open door. I watched the cars on the roads below looking smaller than the little Match Box cars I played with as a child…..and then smaller still.
I turned to the young guy next to me and noticed his pallor to be more than white and so to alleviate his tension I mentioned….
“ Ya know….this is going to be the biggest rush of my life .” and without turning his head he instantly came back with…..
“ I’m rushin the fuck out now….I ain’t never been on an airplane before . “
Now… static line jump training entails some explicit instructions. As you leave the aircraft you must scream out “ARCH ! “ in order to remind yourself to arch the back making your belly the center of gravity. This causes a horizontal descent and prevents a fatal hanging on the static line that pulls open the chute. Next is the necessity to slowly count one one thousand, two, two thousand, three three thousand. If you make it past four four thousand you need to turn to look to see if you can free a jammed chute before pulling the reserve …. yeah right…. and I was trying to go over all this again in my head when the pilot called back to inform the Jump Master that… “ We’re over the jump zone…gettem ready “. and by this time my tan was a perfect match to that of the kid next to me.
Well I departed that aircraft completely forgetting to scream out “ ARCH ! “ as trained because my throat was filled with quite a different selection of nouns, verbs and adjectives. Instead I rapidly began my count…. one two three four five six seven and at nine thought …
“ Bitch…why me ?!?!” and in panic I twisted and turned to look at my chute when …..
“WWhhumpp “ The chute opened with the harness crossed over the back of my neck pinning my chin to my chest before I eventually spiraled to the correct position
I learned that day that the human body is actually more intelligent than the brain. The brain, you see , will talk you into doing such a thing….. The body however instinctively knows that hurling itself out of an aircraft at 3000 ft is not a natural act. Therefore it tends to tense up….to the point of every muscle from nose to toes hurtin bad the day after.
