Friday, October 27, 2006

Life's Lessons Learned From Parachuting


The Windmill Posted by Picasa

Before you get impressed, thinking I had the courage to jump out of a perfectly good airplane, let me explain…

I had to have been 8 or 9 years old and I had just finished watching a John Wayne movie where parachuting was a main aspect of the movie. Now, I was an imaginative child and I just had to find a way to emulate my hero, John Wayne. I lived on a farm and not far from the farm house was a very tall windmill. Now the one thing I knew was that, in order to parachute, one had to jump from some height. So I determined that the windmill was going to be my platform.

Now for the parachute... Well, in the movies they are big and white and wide, and what was on the farm that I could use for my chute? A sheet … that is, a double sheet. A single sheet would never do. A double sheet would work quite nicely. Now, how do you attach a sheet to your body? I concluded that heavy-duty strong string should do the trick.

I manufactured my parachute, complete with my heavy-duty string tied to each corner, and the string then attached to me. I climbed the windmill. I thought that the very top was a bit high to try an untested chute, so I climbed about half way up and jumped. This is where I began to learn some life lessons…

Life lesson number one: heavy-duty string tied to the corners of a sheet doesn’t work so well for a parachute!! The string came off my chute.

Life lesson number two: survey the area below the platform before jumping. It seems I jumped on the side of the windmill that had a fence. I landed on the fence, gashing a pretty good hole in my arm (a scar I carry to this day). After getting patched and stitched and consoled, and, as I recall, yelled at after my folks determined I was going to live, I redesigned my chute. I allowed as how since the string didn’t work tied to the chute I would use twine (much heavier) and put it through the sheet at the corners.

I climbed a bit higher for the second jump. Having learned life lesson number 2 from the first jump (“look before you leap”), I went to the other side of the windmill.

I jumped. I immediately began to learn some additional life lessons: twine didn’t work either, design didn’t work (as the sheet ripped), and the little shed at the bottom of the windmill was wider than it appeared. I didn’t hit the fence, but did manage to rip out all of my stitches when I hit the roof of the shed.

The big life lesson I learned: let John Wayne jump out of airplanes. I decided to play “soldier” on the ground.

After my parachuting accident it was several years before gravity and I had another encounter with heights...and, well, that’s another story...

© 2006 Robert Allen Hill

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great Job!

Anonymous said...

Loved the comment about not caring for the color green :) Watch out sonny... I wore green :) Great blog!!

Unknown said...

nice story - well written.

Joe said...

Good story!

Ramblings of the Insane said...

Way to go Robert.

Anonymous said...

Creative blog!

G.T. Baker said...

Looks great

Anonymous said...

super blog, share it with the world and be famous.

Anonymous said...

Dad,
I can never hear this story enough! Your ability to tell a story absolutely amazes me. Wonderful Blog and thanks for making me smile...again.
I love you,
Schnooks

Anonymous said...

It's funnier with a sheep!

Anonymous said...

Great story! It reminds me of another acquaintance from those days, who, having just seen the movie, "Trapeze" (Gina Lollabrigida, Tony Curtis, Burt Lancaster), had to try some of those tricks up in the barn, using pitchfork handles and baling twine for the trapeze! I wonder how we survived growing up on a farm.

Anonymous said...

Hi Robert,
It looks good, but I am not the blogger expert. I also looked at your other website...WOW, I am impressed. I may need to hire you to read my dissertation next year! Take care
Tony V

Anonymous said...

Dad,
I don't think I have actually heard that story before. I knew about it, I just can't recall hearing it told to me. I enjoy reading anything you put together.You have an ability to make it feel as if I was standing at the bottom of the windmill watching you jump.

Anonymous said...

Bob,

You are the ultimate writer. I miss working with you.

Lisa

Donald said...

Great Story! Experience is a great teacher.

Maurice Mahan said...

Robert, thanks for sharing your story-its the kind of thing we lose sight of as grown ups.

Anonymous said...

Great tale. Now submit it somewhere and earn a little money. Might be a hidden author in you.

Janine

Anonymous said...

Robert,

Thanks for making me laugh - please write "the rest of the story"

Sara

Anonymous said...

I liked it! Got to get me one of these!

comebackkid said...

You outdone yourself Robert !!! RogerD A911

the dawg said...

ver good work

Stephen Cummings said...

Blogs are perfect for getting stories like this in some form of print. Good stuff.

Anonymous said...

nice novel