True stories they say are stranger than fiction and the New Year always reminds of the time, some years back, when I made a resolution that was going to be damnably hard to keep. The family were sitting around home on New Year’s Eve when we decided to make our resolutions and knowing that I was perfect in every way - oh Lord, it’s hard to be humble - I was having difficulty in deciding what on earth I could do to improve my persona.
I reluctantly conceded that I did have a flaw in my make-up; I’m terrified of heights. The resolution then was obvious. I would cure myself of the fear of heights during the ensuing year. The kids, knowing of my overt fear, were uncharitably sceptical.
I put up with their taunts most of that January, but I was lying on the beach one day and looking up at the sky and it occurred to me that the thing I would hate to do the most was to go skydiving. It was a revelation; all I had to do to cure my fear of heights was to jump out of an aeroplane. It was so simple; why hadn’t I thought of it before?
I was aware that there was a skydiving company out at Hood aerodrome, but I didn’t want to fail locally so I rang the Manawatu skydiving club to check out the options there. The lady on the phone was most obliging. I couldn’t have rung at a more opportune time, she intoned. They were starting a new class in the first week in February and I was welcome to join. It required me to attend a tutorial every Thursday night for six weeks at a complex at Milson Aerodrome in Palmerston North where I would be taught the theory of skydiving. On the sixth night I would be required to sit a test and if I passed, on the following Saturday, I could take my first jump.
So every Thursday I would rush home from work, shower and change, and then tear over the Pahiatua track to Palmerston North to learn the “theory” of skydiving. I have put the inverted commas around “theory” because I want to emphasise it.
There were 28 in the class; I was the palpably the oldest and we didn’t do anything practical except on the third or fourth evening we were made to climb on to a platform about as high as a dining room table and with our parachutes strapped on our backs we slid down a flying-fox type of contraption and were instructed how to land safely.
To give you some indication of the extent of my fear, I’m bound to confess that my legs were shaking even standing on the table!
On the sixth night we were given the test and I topped the class in the “theory” of skydiving. In fact we all passed with flying colours and the instructor invited us to come back on Saturday morning and, weather permitting, we would be able to put our theory into practice.
I didn’t get a wink of sleep on that Friday night and next morning reluctantly arose early for the pilgrimage to the Manawatu. My wife and the four grown-up children were all coming of course; there was no way that they were not going to witness the inevitable death by fright of their wimp-like husband and father. I wanted to get lost somewhere around Mangamaire but the family kept me on the right track and we arrived punctually at Milson aerodrome on a cloudless, windless day in mid-March. Perfect weather, the instructor gleefully told us, for skydiving.
I tried to appear outwardly calm - but in my heart my knees were shaking! The palpitations increased markedly when the tutor said, “He who tops the class, jumps first.”
The little Cessna 180 sitting on the tarmac was the scariest plane I have ever seen. There was a door missing on one side and when the instructor, the pilot and I were bundled into the tiny cockpit I discovered to my great chagrin that I was sitting next to the gap where the door should have been. I remember saying to the pilot, “Look at those people down there, they look like ants,” he said, “Those are ants you idiot, we haven’t taken off yet.”
Soon we were airborne and the plane circled around and around in the clear blue sky to attain the desired height. By now I was numb with fright. I once read a book called The Power of Positive Thinking and had managed as a result of its teachings to keep the contemplation of actually jumping from an aeroplane at a great height out of my thought patterns over the last six weeks, but now, as the plane soared higher and higher, there was no hiding it from my consciousness. The open-door policy only exacerbated the situation!
Finally the instructor said “O.K. now jump.”
I said, “Can we do just one more circuit?”
He reluctantly acquiesced and allowed the pilot to make another turn which really only prolonged the agony and meant I was even further away from terra firma. I was then told that if I didn’t jump after the next circuit he would get the pilot to tip the plane and I would fall out and this would be somewhat less pleasant than actually taking the plunge voluntarily.
Voluntarily! How on earth did I allow myself to get in to this ludicrous situation?
The moment of truth arrived. The New Year’s resolution was about to be fulfilled. I took a deep breath, cursed Dr Norman Vincent Peale and his darned book, and jumped.
Now in the “theory” of skydiving we were told to count up to about fifteen seconds, enjoy the sensation of flying, then pull the rip-cord and float down to earth to the cheers of the madding crowds.
I think I counted fully one-and-a-half seconds before I hastily tugged firmly on the cord. You’re never going to believe this, but the parachute failed to open. Never mind, I topped the class in the “theory” of skydiving and it is important not to panic; you simply curl up into a foetal position and pull on the little white cord with the knot on the end that’s conveniently at waist height and this will release the emergency chute which will reliably open and safely float you to the ground. I tugged at the cord and at this time all the “theory” went out the window. The emergency chute failed to open as well.
I never did, at any stage, experience the glorious sensation of floating or flying. Now it felt like I was hurtling, and the ground was coming up at an alarming speed.
They say just before you die your whole life flashes before your eyes and certainly as I looked down I could see on the edge of the tarmac my wife and the four kids standing around the car, all the things I hold dear to me – particularly the car – and I could imagine what was going through their minds. “Gosh, isn’t Dad brave, he really is waiting to the very last minute before he opens his parachute!”
To the right of me I could see the Palmerston North public hospital, just a few hundred yards east of the aerodrome, where, with a bit of luck I might end up, but behind me, to my left, there was the Kelvin Grove Crematorium which was far more likely to be my ultimate destination.
I decided to have one more crack at life. I grabbed the white cord firmly, got my hand securely behind the knot and I pulled and I pulled - and I pulled the cord clean out of my pyjamas!
Have a great 2013!
