244 lines
13 KiB
Plaintext
244 lines
13 KiB
Plaintext
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= F.U.C.K. - Fucked Up College Kids - Born Jan. 24th, 1993 - F.U.C.K. =
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Suicide and Airplanes: Jumping
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------------------------------
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I tried to kill myself when I was 21 years old. Whatever. Rough childhood
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and all that. Anyway, I've been doing things that are a little dangerous
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just about my whole life. Most people think I'm crazy. Or I'm a little
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on the edge. In high school I was known as satan. Not that you give a
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shit about any of that but it's nice to have a little background.
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I went to college in NY where I crossed a 3 mile long railroad bridge one
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night with my roommate. It's famous now. It's in a bunch of railroad
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magazines; the first railroad bridge to span the Hudson River. They're
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rebuilding it into a walkway now. A monument of sorts. No big deal eh?
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Did I mention that it's about 300' above ground? Oh yeah, it was condemned
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after a fire in 1929? or there about. We crawled for about half the total
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distance on a 12" wide I-beam. Very exciting shit. Maybe I'll write about
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that someday . . .
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Anyway, that wasn't exciting enough. I decided to start train dodging.
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Now that's an adrenaline pumper. Picture yourself standing in the middle of
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three sets of railroad tracks. There's a small but stiff breeze. Down the
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line you can see a small pimple of a light. You figure out which track the
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train is on and move to it. You stand solidly in the middle of the two iron
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bars. Throwing back the last of a beer, you grin and toss the can aside.
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The echo of the empty tin can booms in your ears. Slowly the light gets
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larger.
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Larger . . . more intense. It blinds you. The thunder of the train can be
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heard now. It's less than a mile away. The light is right in front of you.
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Day blossoms around you.
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Pounding, pounding, pounding.
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Your breath catches in your throat. What would happen if you just didn't
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jump. What would everyone think then? Still no one would know. They would
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know nothing. So you prepare to jump.
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100 yards, 80 yards, 40 yards. The rattle of the cars can be heard against
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the constant background noise of steel on steel. For all intents and
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purposes a million tons of steel comes barreling at you. Constrained only
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by two insignificant steel bands.
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Your roommate jumps off. You stare into the light.
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This is what a deer feels like. Immobilized your mind races faster than
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your heart. At 40' your roommate screams at you. His voice just barely
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audible over the cacophony of noise created by the beast that is baring down
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on you.
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30' and a solid force slams into your side. You fall to the gravel bed.
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Rocks driving into your wrists: knees pounding into the wood of the tracks
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next to you.
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As you lay bruised on the cold rocky ground a gale washes over you; sweeping
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away the adrenaline as a cold shower washes away the pain of sunburn.
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We used to do that a lot. Then my roommate got tired of tackling me. He
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began to hate me I think. Shit, if I had to save some idiot every night
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I'd grow to loath them too. Later on in my college career I tried it for
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real. I lost everything but my life: In a sense I even lost that.
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After they let me out of the hospital I left the state for greener pastures
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and bluer skies. It was a good decision. It was time for change.
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Well, I toned my life down a bit. Instead of drinking myself into oblivion
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night after night I started writing; I only drink on the weekends now. That
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is, I try only to drink on the weekends.
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After a few months of being normal I got tired of it all. I lost my suicidal
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edge to an extent. But I still had a craving to give my adrenal gland a
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workout. So I decided to jump out of a plane.
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My roommate Scott and I decided that we'd jump. He's totally normal so I
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was shocked that he had an interest at all. Not that you have to be abnormal
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to jump out of a totally stable aircraft.
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So, we set up a date to do it and drove out to the airport. It was the
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smallest airport I've ever seen in my life. I thought it was a farm. It
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was comprised of a large barn and a dirt parking lot. Along side the barn
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was a small trailer. Just past the trailer was the worlds smallest runway.
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It was either a runway or a long stretch of crabgrass. Hard to tell
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actually. Remembering back on it I think it was just a small patch of
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crabgrass gone wild.
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We headed out into the trailer where we signed our lives away and promised
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that if we died no one would sue them for it. They were to be held
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responsible for nothing. No matter what. Fine by me.
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We were led into another room where we where taught the basics of arching
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and turning and when to grab the toggles and what to do with them. We
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weren't doing it solo. We were going tandem. What that entails is that
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there's someone behind you that you're strapped to at the shoulders and
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the waist.
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We suited up, complete with goggles and Greg Bradey-type pants. At that
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point in time I'm sure we could have scored with any chick in the world.
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We even got a cap to go along with our new nifty duds.
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Anyway, we met the guys that were to be our tandem counterparts. The guy
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I was with was about 6'4" and skinny as a rail. Probably even thinner than
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I and that's a feat. His name was Paul. We loaded up in the plane. Our
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tandem partners explaining over again what the scenario was to be. Paul
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was silent. I listened to Scott's partner.
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We'll be jumping out at 14,000'. We'll be free-falling for a total of two
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minutes. Fall out of the plane. Forward. Arch. Because the two of us will
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have a higher mass I'll let out a small chute to keep us at the same terminal
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velocity that a single jumper would have. When I tap you on the right
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shoulder spin right. Tap again. Stop. When I tap you on the left shoulder
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spin left. Tap again. Stop. Check your altimeter. At 6,000' we pull the
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chute. You let me know that you're aware of when that is. When I tap you
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again hold yourself and I'll let out the shoot. Then stand on my feet and
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I'll unhook you at the waist. You'll swing down, connected only at the
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shoulders. Don't worry the harnesses are built to hold a weight of 1 ton.
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And you don't weigh that much.
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So with that out of the way we're bounding along the grass runway. I was
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in the front seated on the floor next to the pilot. My Paul was seated
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behind me. If I were gay I would have liked that compromising position.
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I'm not, and I wished to god that he wasn't either. I watched the pilot
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defy the laws of gravity. We were tossed up and down, side to side by the
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gale winds. I looked over at Scotty. He looked a bit scared. He kept
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staring at me. Trying to tell me something with his eyes. (Later I found
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out that he was big-eyed because the girl next to him was so hot. I was
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enjoying the whole experience so much I didn't even notice that half the
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plane was filled with females.)
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Paul and this other guy started talking about how it was so tragic the guy
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last week had come unattached from Paul's harness and died in the fields
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below. Maybe they shouldn't have drank that night they say. "Oh yeah,"
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Paul says to this other jumper, "which pill was I supposed to take?" "The
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red one." "Shit," Paul says shaking his head back and forth, "I took the
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blue ones again."
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At 8,000' we all got buddy buddy with our tandem partner and got latched
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together. They double checked all four points of contact. Both shoulders
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and hips.
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"Ok, throw 'em out," the pilot said, smiling at Paul.
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So, two by two, everyone made their way to the back door. Which, by the
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by, was a solid sheet of plexiglass. Very cool. You could see for miles
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out of that door. I'm blind so I couldn't tell the difference between the
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grass, the fields, or the forests and lakes but it was enrapturing
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none-the-less. As I made it towards the door Paul checked the straps of
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the harness. When he was satisfied he pushed me closer to the door. The
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sound of the wind buffeting past the plane was deafening. Everyone had
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jumped but us.
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"You're friend said that you're nuts," he told me. "Are you," he half-asked.
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"Uh, I don't know. I guess you could say that I'm not right," I told him
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blandly.
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"Ok, forget what they told you down there. We're going to roll out of this
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plane."
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"Uh . . .," I half replied.
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"Just tuck your head between your legs and roll. Keep trying to kiss your
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ass until I tap you. Then arch.
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With that he called out, "One . . . two." And out we went. No three. No
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fucking three.
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I tucked my head between my ass. The world spun by then the sky then the
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world. World, sky, world, sky. Blue, green, bluegreen, bluegreen. My
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mind receded in upon itself. I was whole: I was alive and I plummeted
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towards death.
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From out of the spinning blue and green came a pounding on my back. The
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wind made it impossible to hear. We had reached a higher terminal velocity
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than normal . . . he hadn't let out the safety shoot yet. We were still
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free falling.
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I arched. Immediately we leveled out and stopped spinning. In front of us
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the plane dove and swung up under us. We fell towards it and swiftly it was
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under us and away. It was gone out of my line of vision in a split second.
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I enjoyed the speed. My mind raced quicker than my body. Ecstasy consumed
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my very being. We spun right then straightened out. We spun left and
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straightened out. I looked at my altimeter, 8,000'. God this was
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intense! We spun in a left circle for what seemed like an hour.
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We rolled once and then arched again. I interpreted his nudges and assumed
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I did the right thing because he threw up two thumbs in front of my face and
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shook them. I looked at my altimeter, 4,000'.
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Then he tapped me again. I held myself. Suddenly I was jerked out of my
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free-fall. The chute opened. He reached down and pulled my goggles off
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my eyes. He screamed in triumph/joy/ecstasy/fear/relief. I joined him.
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I got on his feet and he undid the clasps at my waist. Then he told me
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to get off his feet. For two seconds I thought I was going to fall the
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rest of the way. But after a mere 2" my shoulder straps took hold and my
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weight was nestled by the harness once again. He handed me the toggles
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and we proceeded to do spirals left and right, testing the chute.
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Everything was ok so we started fucking around a bit. All the while he
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was laughing and screaming. We did a 720 degree turn that brought our
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bodies up even with the top of the chute. It was tremendous.
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We settled down and watched the others who had jumped before us land.
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Then Paul said that we had to prepare to land. All I had to do was pull
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down as hard as I could on the toggles seconds before my feet touched the
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ground. He said that if we came in too fast that I should just raise my
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legs up and hit with my ass.
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We practiced in the air. We both pulled down on the toggles and for half
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a second Mother Nature was defeated. We hung motionless in the air.
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Neither going up nor going down. It was the most surreal feeling I've
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had in my entire life. There is no drug that I've found to duplicate
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that feeling. It was almost as intense as plummeting down through the
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skies staring at the massiveness of earth.
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When we landed on the pad I unclasped from Paul, shook his hand, and
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tackled Scotty.
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The Unbidden
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= (c) Copyright. All files copyright by the original author. =
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