Skydiving for dummies
Speakeasy writer Aaron Yeager takes to the skies
By Aaron Yeager, Staff Writer
May 29, 2007 | 1:54 p.m.
Skydiving is on everyone's "100 Things to Do Before I Die" list. What's interesting, however, is that for such a seemingly bold endeavor, jumping out of a plane at 13,500 feet is easier than one would think.
Ohio University's Skydiving Club, also known as "Skycats," invited students to experience this quintessential once-in-a-lifetime activity Memorial Day Weekend for what they promised was "the cheapest you'll ever do." While that claim may not be entirely true, at least monetarily, it was reinforced for me by the fact that, as one of my fellow jumpers would mention later, skydiving after college -- when one is potentially bound into many more obligations -- is a much more unwieldy task.
After deciding to take a leap of faith -- both financially and literally -- I got in contact with my ride to the site: Shawna Drummond, an Aviation major. Shawna reminded me of an article in the New York Times that described sitcom King of the Hill as "offer[ing] the most subtle and complex portrayal of small-town voters..."
Drummond hails from Coal Grove, OH, a town with one stoplight, one grocery store and one "hangout" that sells hot dogs and other simple fare. In contrast to another jumper from Long Island, she found Athens to be "too big."
The Scene
Xenia, OH, is the ideal skydiving enclave. In this no-man's land of endless crop fields and dusty dirt roads lies a quaint little hangar populated by trailers, a shack and some rocking chairs. Here a small crowd gathers to watch jumpers drift back to Earth like multicolored snowflakes.
As we arrived, we found that one of the more experienced jumpers had just proposed to his girlfriend while in flight. The two embraced after returning to the ground, while adoring family members looked on. As I came to realize, skydiving for some is not just a death-defying stunt; it's a way of life.
After being corralled into a side room of the skydiving company's shack, I signed my initials to just about every safety, do-not-sue-us-no-matter-what clause possible. I recalled there even being one involving rape; after seeing that, I figured it was best to sign and move along, leaving grotesque considerations to the lawyers.
Freefalling
Four hours after we arrived, my name was finally called for the next "load." A man who resembled Ty Pennington presented himself as my instructor and helped me into my harness, which was surprisingly no more complicated than one used for climbing a rock wall. As we sat in wait for the plane, he asked me if I was nervous. To my own surprise, I felt not a trace of anxiety.
"You'd have to be crazy not to get nervous up there," another instructor mentioned later. While I do find it strange that I was virtually unphased by the scope of my undertaking, it seemed that signing away my life on that contract made it easier to proceed with the real thing.
Crammed together on two facing benches, my crew made its jerky ascent through the clouds to the designated altitude of 13,500 feet. The beginners among us had to jump in tandem with instructors, meaning that we had to spoon with them all the way down.
The jump itself was very procedural. Nobody visibly hesitated, and single-file everyone waddled, instructor in tow, to the open door and teetered into a bright abyss. When my turn came, I gave the ground a cursory glance before gently leaning off the threshold. I didn't experience vertigo like I would looking off a ten-story building because the landscape below appeared undescript and unreal.
For the freefalling portion of the jump, I felt like I had stuck my face in front of a blow dryer. My eyes welled up and time seemed to stop until the chute was finally pulled by my instructor. Then, all was strangely silent and still. In my displaced frame of reference I felt as if I weren't much higher than 1,000 feet, but that the earth below was somehow naturally miniaturized.
The Denouement
On the ground, it took me a while to recover my bearings. I talked with an old man, Kenny Ruetch, who has been jumping for 10 years.
Ruetch got into skydiving after he saw a picture of it on the wall of Skydiving Greene County's office. "I haven't left ever since," he remarked.
Ruetch brings a trailer down from Columbus every weekend to instruct newcomers. He grilled burgers in silence after it was too dark to skydive, and everyone gathered around to eat, drink, and chatter after a long day.
"This is my kind of party," Drummond remarked in her subtle southern accent. "No more than 20 people."
At last, it seemed ironic that the most down-to-earth people could devote their lives to falling from such great heights.