If at fIrst you dont succeed

Skydiving isnt for you

By Cody Worsham Photos By Corey soignet

M
DIG May 25, 2011 digbatonrouge.com

ost students celebrate the conclusion of finals week with a blowout binge-drinking fest, an undies run, or a trip to Hangout Fest. On an impulse (read: imprisoned by my editors unflinching demands), I jumped out of a plane. Ive never been a risk taker. In fact, the most dangerous thing Ive ever done was probably go two-sies at a Circle K restroom in Pascagoula which, granted, is a pretty risky endeavor. Nonetheless, as I subconsciously dug my fingernails several inches into my pilots headrest, as our Cessna 182 crested at an altitude of 12,000 feet above the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, the clouds forming an impenetrable Antarctic wall 360 around me, both heart and testicles lodged firmly in my throat as the door opened to intake 160 miles per hour of wind resistance, I figured I had topped my Pascagoula deuce, though defecation (involuntary) seemed a possible emergent link. But hold your horses, there, chief. I didnt get straight to the jump, and neither do you. Skydiving is a drawn out, torturous journey requiring comparable prose. Half of the fun is the build up, anyway.

Road to perdition
Skydive Nawlins is an hours drive east on I-12, tucked just behind the Slidell Airport, which looks like the set of an NBC sitcom with its crisp but humorously small terminal. A small sign off Airport Rd. leads you to a gravel path, which takes you past a gravel parking lot (humorously, or ominously, depending on your disposition, labeled Survivor Parking) and to the Skydive Nawlins hangar. Dig sports columnist Scott Burns and I are the first to arrive, I having no inclination toward spending a Sunday contemplating the task before me. I had scheduled the earliest possible time for my jump to avoid the mental torture. Fortunately, numbed by a 12:30 a.m. bedtime, a 5:00 a.m. alarm, and the mellow strummings of Tommy Emmanuel, I have been able to limit my minds screamings the morning of my adventure, while the combination of the previous nights Boudin balls and the mornings Sausage McGriddles begin having a singular effect on my stomach and make my shaky nerves indistinguishable from indigestion. Confusion is better than the alternatives, at this point. Upon pulling up to the hangar, we meet drop zone officer (DZO) Brenda Grafton, who has also acted as our media liaison. She hands me a hefty stack of paperwork to fill out, all of which exonerate the company from any injury or, gulping, death that might occur during the jump. Fortunately, Scott is rambling about the secretive and climactic one-liner he will deliver should we jump together and keeps my mind off the fact that I am basically waiving my right to live. (Unfortunately, because we needed a photographer to jump solo for photos, and the plane would only hold a maximum of four jumpers, it was not to be. Scott later revealed he had debated between, See you next fall, and, If I dont make it, tell her I love her, before settling on the latter.) I complete the paperwork as the rest of the early morning jumpers filter into the hangar, around a dozen or so adventurers. Digs own Kendra Chamberlain arrives in due time. She is supposed to jump with us, but was delayed by a tire blowout on the way. I find this darkly comforting, reminding myself that, statistically, you have a higher risk of dying on the way to skydive than actually during the dive itself. Next, tandem instructor Corey Soignet details the proper tandem skydiving form back arched, abs drawn back toward the spine isometrically, chin up, arms at a U like someones trying to fold you in half at the hips. I make an effort to both listen to the crucial, life-ensuring information he is providing while recollections of the random skydiving facts and figures I Googled days ago flurried through my head: There have been just six deaths in 2011, four in North America, two of which occurred simultaneously. I like my odds, but that doesnt hinder my morbid brain from conducting its duties. I suddenly recall a video I had watched of a guy tandem skydiving with his cat. The poor little felines limbs had flailed about, panicked and terrified, as the door opened, before the two fell and disappeared beyond the range of the cheap camcorder.

Where angels dare

Though Soignet does most of the preliminary instruction, he is only the photographer for my jump. My instructor is Tom Tharp, henceforth known as Hippie Tom or Hippie, a self-imposed but wholly appropriate nickname. Hippie Tom comes off as a cross between Desmond from ABCs LOST and a State St.-style hobo: strong, handsome, confident (and possibly capable of time travel and withstanding blasts of radiation), but probably high on unfathomable combinations of toxins. His lips are cracked, but constantly smiling, parting often to impart nuggets of wisdom and ribbing humor. His jokes range from the obligatorily discomforting death humor (he requested duct tape for loose straps and coyly requested assistance with his own chute, feigning unfamiliarity) to crude jokes that are not served justice without his delivery and will not be printed for that and other reasons. He also yells at the voices in his head to subsist. I convince myself he is kidding.

Saddling the Pegasus

Tom and I suit up, I adorning a purple and red jumpsuit suitable for both skydiving and appearing in an OK Go music video, and we make our way to the Cessna, my mind moving much faster than my legs. The plane rides smooth ridiculously smooth. Ive been thrown around cruelly on many a commercial flight, but this is the steadiest aerial experience of my life. I found out later from Skydive Nawlins manager and chief instructor Alfred Shotz! Neuman (not of Mad magazine fame) that this is a point of pride for the company. Their Cessna is widely considered one of the finest jumping planes in the country, noted for both its aesthetically pleasing appearance and its finely tuned, meticulously maintained internal machinery. I dont know this as we take off and begin our ascent to 12,000 feet. I was either too distracted or too nervous to ask any substantial questions beforehand, or both. But the plane rides smoothly enough to keep me calmer than I anticipated. Hippie is wearing sunglasses, but Im pretty sure hes sleeping between tidbits of small talk. Howd you get into this? I ask him. I just sort of fell into it, he answers. Rimshot. The farther we climb, the more surprised I am by my thoughts. Theres no doubt Im extremely nervous, attested to by the glut of yawns I emit on the way up. I count 43 yawns from lift off to time of jump. (I have this strange tic: I yawn when Im nervous. I tell Corey and Hippie that Im not being cocky. I feel they dont believe me.) Still, I allow my mind to run freely with increasing altitude, and Im pleasantly pleased with where it decides to go. The morbidity of the ground apparently did not board the plane with me. All I can focus on
See SKYDIVING on page 6

DIG May 25, 2011 digbatonrouge.com

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skydiving, continued from page 5

is the beauty of the northern shore of Pontchartrain, and the parallel clarity of the Sunday morning sky and my normally clouded but now strangely clear thoughts. Death is the farthest thing from my mind. In fact, I feel like life has never dominated my thinking more. Then Corey opens the door. I have been deceived by the steady creep of the Cessna. The relative ease of its crawl across the sky is quickly replaced by the blast of triple-digit wind resistance smacking me in the face. I instinctively retract my claws like the previously referenced cat, unconsciously grabbing what I learn later from photographic evidence is the back of pilot Kevin Coltons headrest. My fingers are sore later from this death grip. I do, however, manage to keep my limbs from excessive flailing, though I cannot say there was no flailing whatsoever. Hippie wakes up and tells me to squat like a catcher so he can connect to me. I assent robotically. When he makes the connection, he tells me to fall back into his lap, which is warm and comforting against the unexpectedly cold wind. Im too paralyzed with instinctive fear to notice that Corey has climbed out on the wing of the plane to take photos of my exit. Im too paralyzed to even notice that Im scared. Everything is a lucid dream. Tom tells me to crawl to the opening and place my foot on the external step, which looks microscopically tiny against the panorama of South Louisiana. I stick my foot out and miss the step by quite a bit. Fortunately, I correct my mistake and succeed on the second attempt. Im not really breathing at this point. Its more like the oxygen is forcing its way into my lungs, while my fear contractions force out the carbon dioxide. Hippie verifies the spot. He tells me to cross my arms, and then, my body pressing fully into his, we flip. The expression jumping out of a plane is a total misnomer and is wholly inappropriate. Jumping implies exerting a strong enough force against gravity as to move higher. At 12,000 feet, you stand no chance against gravity. Falling is the only fitting term for what happens once you make that front-flip exit out the door. The initial flip is disorienting, and once Hippie rights us, its on. I initially feel my form is somehow off, but Hippie, my guide and altitudinal guru, gently grabs my hair and pulls my head up from its improper angle. The view is no longer my purple knees, but the northern coast of Lake Pontchartrain, the causeway running to New Orleans and the bulging Mississippi River brimming in the distance. But heres the kicker: any fears I felt, however little compared to expectations, remain in the plane. The fall, instead, is peaceful not boring peaceful, but exciting peaceful, like resting in the arms of a loved one after a long separation. Maybe its the aforementioned confusion of equilibrium that abates the nerves, or maybe its subconscious pleasure that the earth wants you so much as to pull you toward itself at 120-mph speeds. It could also be the incredibly powerful faith I have in Hippie, who begins to resemble a ruddier, be-stubbled Jesus in my minds eye, his arms outstretched in sacrifice and protection. The freefall lasts from 45 to 60 seconds, but it seems both instant and eternal all at the same time. The air rushes through my nostrils and burns the back of my throat, colder as we pass through the clouds, and Im acutely aware of each and every breath in the drop. Corey catches up to us for photographs and grabs my wrist, nearly knocking me from my meditative perch 9,000 feet above the earth. I try to scream because it seems like what one should do while skydiving, but I cant hear myself, so I try to scream louder. Corey then does some really cool flips and awesome facial expressions, so I respond with an attempt at a Jordan-like tongue expulsion. The wind does not allow this, and my tongue clumsily slaps against my filtrum, spraying saliva bullets all over my goggles. After the mid air photo sesh, Corey dives down further below, dropping at a rate that seems unnatural. Hippie deploys the chute at 7,000 feet, and the rest of the fall is the best sightseeing Ill probably ever do. My thoughts begin to re-emerge, and I suddenly realize that for the first time since I finished my college basketball career (in the loosest sense of the word career), my mind had been completely still. I then realize why I love sports so much, be it basketball, soccer, or even skydiving. Its not the sound of thousands of spectators oohing and aah-ing or the thrill of victory in a heated contest. Rather, its that in sports, the excitement, the pre-game jitters, and the rambling thoughts subside at the moment the challenge begins. In any such moment of expression be it athletic, literary, musical, or scientific all is still, and we simply play, falling deeply within our finally quiet selves. There, we discover eternity, and staring death in the face, we find it non-existent.

But heres the kicker: any fears I felt, however little compared to expectations, remain in the plane.

DIG May 25, 2011 digbatonrouge.com