Round and Round It Goes

Would I Do It Again? Yes, Please.

When I received the email from my outdoors group listserve, I responded without really thinking about it. It was like I was answering a survey about things I was mildly interested in. I somewhat strongly agreed that I was interesting in skydiving sometime in the vague future.

When J, the outing leader, emailed me back saying “Great! We’re going on Sunday,” as in this Sunday, as in six days from my expression of mild interest, I panicked a bit. I had no plans for this Sunday. Next Sunday I was out of town, and the following Sunday was far enough away to develop alternative plans. But this Sunday…well, now I was stuck.

I was heartened by the fact that as an outing leader, J was something of a disappointment. He was a little scatterbrained. In the course of a two-day period, he lost my cell number three times. He emailed the group to “Make reservations NOW if you want to go,” and then never called to sign up the group. Friday rolled around, and the suitably understanding girl at the skydiving company informed me that yes, J had called, but he hadn’t made any reservations for the group. He had merely asked umpteen questions about how many people had died or been maimed jumping out of airplanes in this particular drop zone, questions whose answers I did not want to hear. (The number is zero, of course. It’s a remarkably safe sport for first-timers, really.)

So I made my decision. I relied on my tried-and-true method of determining the best course of action: “Fuck it.” This phrase usually gets me through whatever it is I’m worried about doing. “Fuck it,” I said, and gave the girl my credit card number. I figured, even if no one else from the group signed up, I’d go it alone. I don’t need a herd for courage. I am a badass mofo.

As it turned out, eight people signed up and showed up. I carpooled with J, an engaging man with the personality of a kindergartner; his large, ponytailed and mustachioed friend J; and a roly poly K who was very adamant about his political views. C, a rather quiet engineer, and his new verbally incontinent roommate N showed up at about the same time my group did. Two girls showed up much later, one absolutely freaking out, but as they didn’t jump with us, I’m going to ignore their presence entirely. Because I can.

The first thing we saw driving up to the site at Lake Elsinore, CA, was a gaggle of divers floating down out of the sky, dozens at a time. Their bright blue, pink, green, red, purple and yellow canopies filled the bright azul dome like a migration of butterflies, some drifting slowly to the flat green grass, some zooming in like hawks on the kill. It was exhilarating, and probably the first real realization that in just a few hours, we ourselves would be descending from that same sky.

In order to even strap on an instructor and a parachute, we had to literally sign our lives away. We signed away, they filmed us signing, and then we read what we had just signed for the camera. This was some major CYA going on here. We had to agree that our descendants couldn’t sue them in the year 2576. None of which would have made a difference, of course, had any of us fallen to our mushy deaths; our parents, children, friends and employers would still have sued the pants off the nice folks there at Lake Elsinore, signatures and videotapes or no.



We then progressed to the video room, where a woman informed us the first section of the film was a “downer,” but the second half would get us all pumped up. I have no idea what was on the second half of the film. Because the first half was a 10-minute legal disclaimer narrated by the highest ranking Unintentional Comedy lawyer ever. He was spit-shined and polished, his hair combed, his suit natty. He sat behind a large lawyerly desk, with a shelf full of legal tomes behind him.

And he had an enormous – though very well-groomed – Uncle Jesse/ZZ Top beard stretching from his chin to his navel. I haven’t a clue what he told us about the legality of voluntarily jumping out of a working airplane, but the man rocked.



From there we were directed to a covered area full of picnic tables and told to stay together so and instructor could give us the rundown. Within thirty seconds of these instructions, J had wandered off to gaze at a bumper sticker or something, N was off an running with a spoken list of everyone he had ever informed in his life that he wanted to skydive, and a couple of the guys meandered over to watch somebody else’s jump tape. It was like a fire drill with first graders.

Our initial instructor Js showed up and looked at me like I was a very bad den mother who couldn’t keep her charges straight, then launched right into his spiel. We all lined up to go through the “simulator,” a mock-up of the airline doorway. No one paid a word of attention, and no one got the movements right (right knee down, left foot on the door, thumbs in your pack straps, 1-2-3-go, arch back, check altimeter, pull rip cord at 5500 feet), but it turned out that was all right because once you get on the plane, you are merely a tinkertoy for your tandem instructor, and all these steps are just to keep your mind busy so you won’t freak out and force the plane down.

Then we waited. And waited. And waited. Our reservations had been for 10:30 a.m., but since it’s damn near impossible to get eight people all going in the same direction at the same time, we were slightly late. We didn’t get up in the air till 12:30 or so.

They suited us up in jumpsuits and harnesses, introduced us to our tandem instructors (I got the best guy ever – T. He forgot to give me head gear, but I gave him shit for it, and it was all good), let our videographers get some really goofy interview footage of us, ran us through the simulator again, and let us wait around some more, this time at the edge of the drop zone, marveling at the experienced divers flying in or rehearsing their in-air formations on the ground. I don’t know about the rest of the group, but I was starting to get a little giddy, not to mention weak from hunger, since I hadn’t eaten since 7 a.m.

Finally, they packed us into the tiny plane, which makes mass transit look like a luxury cruise. It was just a tin can with benches along either side, and we were all wearing each others’ deodorant by the time we got out. The climb to 12,500 feet took about ten minutes, ten minutes that I spent finally feeling like a complete fool for tempting Death in such an outrageous manner. I had previously boasted that so far this year (all two months of it) I have kept my emergency room visits down to one; on that plane, I regretted throwing my good fortune in the gods’ faces so extravagantly.

I was the last one off, which sounds like it would be nerve-wracking, but everything went so fast I didn’t even get a chance to see the rest of my group fall out of the plane. I was too concerned with the guy strapped tightly to my back, moving down the bench, and of course, all those instructions I’d received in the simulator. Was it right knee or left knee down? Which is my right knee again? Were we going 1-2-3 and then go, or 1-2-go on 3?



I never got it all sorted out, because within ten seconds of the first guy out the door, my video guy was swinging out, and T was pelvic thrusting to the count. Then we were out the door. Flying. Positively flying.

That first shove out the door was heart-stopping. I had just abandoned an airplane at 12,500 feet in the air. That’s 2.37 miles above the surface of Earth, zooming toward it at 120 miles per hour with nothing to stop the headlong rush but some rope and a glorified sheet. It was undoubtedly, indubitably, undeniably the most excited, most exhilarated, most alive I have ever felt in my life. The view was the same you’d see from a passenger jet on approach, only no wings or landing gear to spoil the 360 degree panoramic. It was cold, around 40 degrees, but I never felt it. I was just free. I could do nothing but grin and gawk and hope that it never ended.



For a few seconds anyway. Then T physically picked my head up so I would look at my camera guy, floating a few feet in front of me. I mugged for him, grinning and yelling, though the wind whipping past us left nothing of my voice to be heard. At one point I stuck my tongue out at him, not having the foresight to realize that at 120 MPH, the wind would whip my tongue around like a flag in a tornado (when we first viewed my video, this sight completely grossed the instructors out. Jeez, like no one’s ever stuck their tongue out before).

After 45 seconds of freefall, T shoved my wrist in my face to let me know we were at 5500 feet. I reached back, yanked the orange golf ball on his hip, the chute opened, and the entire world silenced.

My camera guy sped on down to the ground, and the first thing out of my mouth upon learning I could hear myself again was:

“THAT FUCKING ROCKS!!!”



T laughed, saying “I love getting people like you,” and I kicked my feet around, totally high (no pun intended). We played around all the way down, going into spins (the only time my stomach ever threatened queasiness), one way and then back the other, dropping like rocks and then hauling in the canopy to slow it way down. I whooped a lot and laughed maniacally. I don’t think anyone had a hard time figuring out I was having fun.

We dropped in for a landing, perfectly executed and standing straight up. As we swooped down, I caught sight of my camera guy filming us, so I gave him two thumbs up and a big fat “Gig ‘em, Aggies!” which I’m sure no one understood but me. It was just the best thing I could think of to say.



T unhooked himself from me, mostly because I was jumping around like an ADD kid on crack and he’d never get his gear picked up if he was attached to the Tasmanian Devil. I rushed over to bear-hug my cameraman, then hugged T and posed for a pic.

I was hopped up the rest of the day, even though by that point I had to beg a ride off C and N to get back to my car so I could get to my soccer game in Santa Monica on time. I played on no food, but the adrenalin was still bouncing around my system, so I was all right (not all right enough to win, but all right enough not to collapse).

I called my mom to tell her what I’d done – everyone who’d ever done this said not to tell the folks before you go, and I was glad I hadn’t. She was worried even though she knew I was already on the ground and safe again. It didn’t ease her mind much for me to tell her I was in more danger every day driving around LA freeways than I was skydiving. Her first question was, “Well, you’re not going to do it again, are you?” To which I replied “Probably.” Why the hell wouldn’t I want to do that again? It was like riding a cross country course times ten, only you’re not exhausted and beaten at the end.

Dad’s response was a shudder (okay, we were on the phone, I don’t know if he shuddered, but play along with me, ‘kay?), and a flat statement of “Good. Now you’ve got that out of your system and you never have to do it again.” Yeah, Dad can’t even bear to stand next to an open second story window. The idea of an open window two miles up isn’t his idea of a good time.

Overall, I have to say that this was an experience that was worth it at double the money. If I didn’t already have a horse, travel expenses, and a soccer habit to drain my funds, you can bet I’d be hauling my butt out to a drop zone every weekend. Oh, and did I mention that every single guy who skydives is pant-meltingly hot? And there are way more guys than girls? That’s not a bad thing, especially when you compare it to horse shows, where ladies outnumber men 10-1 and the men who are there are ambiguously (or not so ambiguously) gay.

Did I love it? More than anything in recent memory. Would I do it again? Yes, please.

posted by Lyle Skains @ 9:10 AM