Does that sound like a lot to you?

Well, it isn't.

Don Kellner, the DZO of Above the Poconos Skydivers, has just recently

passed the 36,000 jump mark. Now thats a lot of jumps.

 

by Skyjerk

 

Hello. My name is Chris and I'm a jumpaholic.

 

I made my first jump alllll the way back in 1989 in Hazleton, PA.

Being the addictive person that I am, I was hooked right away.

Like most of the other inhabitants of our little planet, I

had very little means with which to pay for my newfound obsession.

My newfound, EXPENSIVE obsession!

I was a 24 year old blue collar guy with a shitty income and a lot of bills.

In an effort to help subsidize my training, I became the biggest recruiter

in town. Nobody was safe from my pitch. If you knew me, spoke to me,

worked with me, walked into the bar I was sitting in, or just glanced

in my direction while riding on the bus, you would be immediately

accosted. I tried to get every living thing within a 100 mile radius

to come and do a tandem jump. You see, I got a $10.00 credit for

every person I brought to make a first tandem.

In the end, I got over 60 people to try it out. For every single one of

those people, the first jump was also the last jump. That was OK, though.

I had already gotten what I wanted from them.

Something in the neighborhood of $600.00 towards my student training.

 

Anyway, I got all the way to my "A" license this way. Sadly, I eventually

ran out of people that were willing to give it a shot. Even more sadly,

with the sharp decline in customers came a sharp decline in transportation

to the dropzone. You see, I had no car so I was always getting rides with

the people that I was badgering into making tandem jumps.

I continued to make it to the dropzone maybe once every 3 or 4 months

where I would be able to afford 1 or 2 jumps.

I was going nowhere mighty fast. Those of you who have pursued this

sport know that you have to get in the air and do it to get any better.

Not only that, you have to do it fairly often to get past the natural anxiety

that comes with jumping from an airplane a few miles above the ground.

This anxiety is something that goes away when you jump with regularity

but it comes creeping back to you again if you take any significant time

away. Well, almost all my time was away.

 

So there I was, always wanting to jump, never finding myself able to do

so, not getting ANY better at all, and never getting over that shitty

anxiety. I was scared every time I jumped.

All these things add up to a poor skydiver. Additionally, a poor, scared,

uncurrent skydiver is not a very safe skydiver.

Strange as it may seem to the uneducated, the fact is that people that

jump MORE are safer than those that jump infrequently.

Staying current is very important.

I dont know about you, but I'm the kind of guy that, while I am not

obsessed with being "The Best" or "Number 1", I do require of myself that

I achieve a certain proficiency in whatever I do. At the very least, I have to

be good (and reasonably safe). As sad as it made me, there was no way

around the fact that with regard to skydiving, do to circumstances that

were, at the time, beyond my control, this minimum level of proficiency

was unattainable.

So, in 1994, with tears in my eyes, I gave up.

I sold my gear (such as it was) and quit the sport. Forever.

 

Or so I believed :-)

 

Fast forward to 2003.

I'm married, have a good paying job in the computer field, I'm not rolling

in money by any stretch, but my bills are paid and there is a little left over

afterwards. It's been 9 years since I quit jumping and I haven't considered

myself a "Skydiver" for a long time. I didnt even think about it anymore.

After spending a couple years in Canada, I had recently moved back to

the states to and rented a house in Malvern, PA. One day I was over

paying my rent in my landlords office and I couldn't help notice a copy

of Parachutist magazine on his desk. Of course I have to ask him

"Do you jump?"

Well, as it turns out, not only does he jump, but this man, my landlord,

is one of the owners of Skydive Cross Keys in Williamstown, NJ.

 

Coincidence?

 

Well, as you can probably imagine, that got me to thinking about the

sport again. And thinking. And thinking. And thinking. And thinking.

One of the things I couldn't help thinking was that all of the hurdles

that had stood between me and being able to pursue it the way it should

be pursued, no longer existed.

I was earning a reasonable income and I had a car of my own.

If I were to give it another shot I would have no difficulty getting to the

dropzone whenever weather permitted, I could jump often enough to

stay current, safe, and actually improve.

I could become the kind of skydiver I had always wanted to be.

There was still one thing that could possibly interfere. I did mention that

I'm married, didnt I? Well, my wife knew that I had done some jumping

back in the day but it had never been a part of our life. I felt a tiny twinge

of fear that she would be against the idea of my returning to the sport.

I should have given her more credit, though.

She doesnt jump, nor does she have any real interest in trying it, but she is

supportive of my desire to do so. She made no effort to interfere or talk

me out of it. All she says when I head to the dropzone is "Come home"

 

CLICK! Somewhere in the dark recesses of my brain, that dusty old

switch clicked back into the "on" position. The machinery came humming

back back to life. With a vengeance.

 

I bought a brand new rig and all new gear and made my triumphant

return to the sport in November of 2003.

 

I went back to my old dropzone in Hazleton, sat through the first jump course

again just to refresh my memory, and made my recurrency jump.

I have to say that my first jump after 9 years away was REALLY SCARY :-)

Looking at video of that jump makes me laugh at myself because I was so

rigid in the air I might as well have been a statue carved out of stone.

Superman himself could not have bent me out of that tight boxman position.

The only part of me that moved was my eyes following the movements of

my instructor that accompanied me on that jump. Darlene had to be there in

case, as she put it "You do something totally unexpected, like not pull"

I definitely would not have expected that!

I pulled. The rest is history.

 

This time, I'm doing it right. I'm doing it the way I always wanted

to but couldn't. I go often and make lots of jumps. There is no fear any

longer. Nothing but pure exhilaration and fun.

I've made more jumps in the last 6 months than I did the whole 5 years

leading to my quitting the sport and I hope that nothing will ever try to

force me to give up this sport again.

I can say with absolute certainty that I am enjoying the sport far more

now than I ever did back in the day. Without the nagging financial and

transportaion concerns, without the distracting anxiety and fear every

time I jump, and with the ability to achieve that certain level of

competance that I require of myself, I'm free to enjoy it in a way that

I was never able to before.

 

I'm not back. I'm actually really here for the first time.

 

And I jumped happily ever after!

 

There is NO END