David Vogel
June 30th, 2011
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Blog & News - Contest
TONIC SOL-FA SAYS “JUMP”, I SAY “HOW HIGH?!?”June 30th, 2011 I can’t say that jumping out of a plane makes the top 10 on my bucket list or even appears in the top 100 as of late and I am literally stunned by how quickly this idea progressed from concept to concrete. I can say that ever since I was a young lad I have admired paratroopers and, at the time, dreamed of joining the Golden Knights of the U.S. Army. For years, this elite parachute team was a part of the week-long River-Cade Festival in my hometown, Sioux City, Iowa. Every night at 5:00 PM, my friend, Jon and I, armed with binoculars, would stop whatever we were doing and head for the highest open clearing (within biking distance) to witness the Golden Nights descend to the ground in grand fashion. Trailed by columns of colorful smoke, circling around each other, weaving back and forth and creating artwork in the sky, the Golden Knights never disappointed. It has been years since I have spoken to Jon, for all I know he followed-through and joined their ranks. So does a dream of skydiving ever really fade? No, it is just incrementally challenged by the reality crescendo of what it means to jump out of plane with a tarp strapped to your back when you just entered your forth decade, have a wonderful life, wife and family and cherish the thought of four to six more decades to come. That being said, it’s not like I am jumping out of plane guided by navigators with questionable maps under the cover of darkness in heavy winds behind enemy lines to be scattered like seeds across the foreign landscape to then have to attempt to rejoin my comrades to carry out life or death missions to project the freedom and democracy of great nations against the strong arm of tyranny and evil as did the courageous paratroopers and now honored veterans of World War II. God forgive me if I can’t muster up the courage to make this recreational jump for a worthy cause. As you might imagine, this event has created a bit of divide at home. My wife and daughters are apprehensive while my sons want me to bring back the parachute so they can jump too. To be honest, I am somewhere between column A and column B. I don’t know if that would be described as cautiously optimistic, nervously excited, scared silly or crazy insane or maybe all of the above. I do have one experience of jumping out of a moving vehicle to eventually meet the ground below. When I was ten or eleven years old, my Dad was driving and we noticed something in the ditch on the passenger side. He swerved to the right and slowed down a bit and I leaped from the vehicle to retrieve my yellow neon Titleist 1. Not understanding the force my inertia would have when my feet reached the fairway; I envisioned a seamless slow-motion reunion that had me nonchalantly jogging to retrieve the ball. Instead, upon impact, I did an immediate face plant and somersaulted down the fairway landing in the rough a few yards away. I gained an appreciation for the basic laws of physics that day and I think that experience will definitely help me land this jump. On a related note, please check out, “Don’t Jump!” my wife and daughters most recent fundraising initiative. Donate here. Mark Tonic Sol-fa
I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO JUMP OUT OF A PLANE (TSF optional)June 29th, 2011 I really have. Thought it would be cool. Exhilarating. Pretty much ever since Mark brought his bootlegged copy of Point Break (you know – Keanu Reeves, Patrick Swayze, and Jared’s favorite, Gary Busey), it has been a dream of mine. Not as big of a fan of surfing and robbing banks though…..that’s just pure Hollywood magic. Now that the prospect is within reach, I still think it would be cool, but pretty much had put it out of my mind until now. Heck, if George Herbert Walker Bush can still do it on his 85th b-day, I should have no problem, right? Who knows? Guess we’ll find out soon enough. I will tell you this, after some of the other interesting heart pounding adventures I’ve been through with these guys, this will just be par for the course. Except this time, we’ll be jumping out of an airplane. While it’s in the sky. Hmm. If you read Jared’s blog about this topic, you’ll notice that he wrote that I like to scream alot when on thrill rides. He’s right. Try as I might, I can’t seem to stop myself. Guess it’s better than hurling. Donate here. Tonic Sol-fa
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