Another skydiving granddaughter

Easy Does It

If you’re keeping score, add another granddaughter to the crowded skies. This time she’s not mine. After my skydiving granddaughter Amanda Cremeans parachuted from a plane this summer (see my Aug. 23 column), a faithful reader told me her granddaughter did the Geronimo thing years earlier, also in the skies over New Jersey.

Rebecca Miller, granddaughter of faithful column reader Ellen Beveridge of Bridgeport, Conn., pulled her ripcord as “a graduation gift of epic proportions” to her skydiving partner and college friend.

Could this trend catch on for skydiving granddaughters everywhere? Call it a convention in the clouds, or better yet, above them?

Through Ellen, I found Rebecca in Richmond, sa, where she lives and works and was happy to talk about her experience jumping, like Amanda, at a New Jersey airport.

“I even splurged the extra clams to have the experience filmed,” said Rebecca, who works in the Richmond pharmaceuticals branch of an international company.

Sadly her video was lost while moving across the country, “but I think sHS is almost obsolete anyway,” she added.

Would Rebecca jump a second time sometime in the future? “I actually have a very strong fear of heights so I’m not itching to go again,” she said, adding, “I would jump again if somebody really wanted to go with me, but these days, I’d rather spend my money on other things.”

Now a homeowner, she explained, “I’m starting my MBA and training for my second degree self-defense black belt in Taekwondo. I guess you could say I have better places to spend the $250 to go jumping out of planes plus $150 to hire a photographer.”

Safety also was a key concern in her skydiving adventure. Rebecca insisted the instructor who jumped tandem style with her have at least 5,000 jumps in his or her resume.

Despite a “bad fear of heights,” she said she was able to overcome the emotion “for a few minutes, but definitely would need somebody to egg me on to jump again.”

At 14,000 feet, Rebecca recalled, “the jump buys you a full minute of free fall at about 120 mph of speed. As we ascended in the aircraft and approached our peak, the air was icy cold on a sweltering summer day.

“I went through my final equipment check and my instructor (to which she was attached) led me to the edge of the open door and I got a glimpse of the camera woman hanging tight to the side of the plane,” Rebecca remembered.

For some reason, Rebecca thought somebody would count to three so she could better prepare herself, “but luckily my tandem instructor knew better and the moment I sat down and crossed my arms, he pushed off.

“I felt terror rush through my body from the flipping motion until my instructor reminded me to keep my legs and arms back,” she continued. “I remember looking down at the earth, not knowing what to think until the instructor motioned for me to look up.”

When Rebecca did, she saw the camera woman, “who grabbed my hands and spun me around. And just like that, the fear subsided and was replaced with exhilaration.”

Before she knew it, the gauge on her arm read 5,000 feet, and it was time to pull the ripcord. “My only problem,” she said, “was that I was going so fast I couldn’t locate the ripcord on my hip.”

After her instructor pulled the cord, he loosened her harness to make it more comfortable for the ride down to a smooth landing. “I have no recollection of our conversation for those five minutes, but I am thankful that my instructor was there to pull that ripcord,” Rebecca remembered, “and so was my friend when her parachute strings got tangled.”

Thinking back on the experience, she said, “People always ask why I would jump out of a perfectly good airplane, and my only true response is that you really must do it to find out.

“It’s certainly a feeling unlike any other, one that I have not been able to duplicate since that day 13 years ago.”

Then Rebecca added, “If it’s required, I’ll skydive again, but only with your granddaughter.” Are you reading this, Amanda?

yrdezdoesit@comcast.net