imported_Tom Aiello
December 20th, 1999, 05:47 PM
This is a kind of funny, but true story. This ##### really happens...
About six or seven months ago, I was an aspiring skydiver, with dreams of BASE, who had a whopping 30 or so skydives. I had been a climber before skydiving, and my real motivation was to get into BASE (call me crazy, or not).
So anyway, here I am, a total newby, listening quite sharply around the DZ, eavesdropping on every conversation with the word BASE, object, or velcro (heard some funny ones, too).
Then, one day, in comes a skydiver I don't know. Let's call him BS. Anyway, as the DZ is shutting down, he pulls out a real live BASE rig and starts packing it! I'd never seen a BASE rig before, so I watched and tried to ask him a few questions.
He did not encourage me. Generally he gave answers like "it's a parachute," or "I'm going jumping," or "somewheresville,"--all in the best tradition of the mysterious BASE jumper.
Then another jumper, who I knew better, and who I knew was BASE jumper, started talking to him. They started talking about jumping off a dam! I knew about buildings, antennas, spans and earth, but this was the first I'd heard of dam jumps.
Listening, I overheard their description of the object.
Wow, I thought, that sounds a lot like the XXX dam, up at ______. So I break into their conversation.
"Hey, that's not the XXX dam, up at ______, that you're talking about, is it?"
"The what dam? Where?" BS asked. "No, I've never heard of that." "No, I'm sure it's not jumpable."
But then the other BASE jumper broke in, "you know that's what everybody said about THE dam, until they jumped it. Now look at it."
But BS, the first real BASE jumper I'd seen with a real BASE rig, said it couldn't be done, and since he was the real thing, I figured he'd know.
One thing leads to another, and six months later, I've made a couple of hundred more skydives, as well as sixty or so BASE jumps. Anyway, I start thinking, hey, what about XXX dam?
So, I start asking around about that object.
Turns out, according to an old timer I know, that only one person ever jumped it, someone called Muff Number One, or some such, who is practically legendary. The landing area is supposed to be gnarly, and no one has been back to it.
But, in the mean time, they've levelled the landing area, installed a road, and put up some power lines (so it's good and bad).
And, so last Sunday, by the light of the full moon, I hucked myself off of XXX dam, up at _____, which certainly couldn't be jumped.
I guess this story has two morals.
1) Go hard--the whole world is jumpable.
2) Don't ignore newbies and whuffos, they may have seen things you haven't.
I hope I haven't offended anyone (especially BS, who is now one of my regular jump partners, and probably doesn't even remember this incident), but I just found this little anecdote too amusing to keep to myself.
Oh, and I know I'm about to get flamed by seventeen people who will tell me I don't have the experience to do this #####. Maybe not, but heck, it's my life. Everybody goes their own way.
--Tom Aiello
About six or seven months ago, I was an aspiring skydiver, with dreams of BASE, who had a whopping 30 or so skydives. I had been a climber before skydiving, and my real motivation was to get into BASE (call me crazy, or not).
So anyway, here I am, a total newby, listening quite sharply around the DZ, eavesdropping on every conversation with the word BASE, object, or velcro (heard some funny ones, too).
Then, one day, in comes a skydiver I don't know. Let's call him BS. Anyway, as the DZ is shutting down, he pulls out a real live BASE rig and starts packing it! I'd never seen a BASE rig before, so I watched and tried to ask him a few questions.
He did not encourage me. Generally he gave answers like "it's a parachute," or "I'm going jumping," or "somewheresville,"--all in the best tradition of the mysterious BASE jumper.
Then another jumper, who I knew better, and who I knew was BASE jumper, started talking to him. They started talking about jumping off a dam! I knew about buildings, antennas, spans and earth, but this was the first I'd heard of dam jumps.
Listening, I overheard their description of the object.
Wow, I thought, that sounds a lot like the XXX dam, up at ______. So I break into their conversation.
"Hey, that's not the XXX dam, up at ______, that you're talking about, is it?"
"The what dam? Where?" BS asked. "No, I've never heard of that." "No, I'm sure it's not jumpable."
But then the other BASE jumper broke in, "you know that's what everybody said about THE dam, until they jumped it. Now look at it."
But BS, the first real BASE jumper I'd seen with a real BASE rig, said it couldn't be done, and since he was the real thing, I figured he'd know.
One thing leads to another, and six months later, I've made a couple of hundred more skydives, as well as sixty or so BASE jumps. Anyway, I start thinking, hey, what about XXX dam?
So, I start asking around about that object.
Turns out, according to an old timer I know, that only one person ever jumped it, someone called Muff Number One, or some such, who is practically legendary. The landing area is supposed to be gnarly, and no one has been back to it.
But, in the mean time, they've levelled the landing area, installed a road, and put up some power lines (so it's good and bad).
And, so last Sunday, by the light of the full moon, I hucked myself off of XXX dam, up at _____, which certainly couldn't be jumped.
I guess this story has two morals.
1) Go hard--the whole world is jumpable.
2) Don't ignore newbies and whuffos, they may have seen things you haven't.
I hope I haven't offended anyone (especially BS, who is now one of my regular jump partners, and probably doesn't even remember this incident), but I just found this little anecdote too amusing to keep to myself.
Oh, and I know I'm about to get flamed by seventeen people who will tell me I don't have the experience to do this #####. Maybe not, but heck, it's my life. Everybody goes their own way.
--Tom Aiello