That time even I jumped out of a perfectly good plane
Sep 08, 2025 2:46 pm
Hello !
Lodi is also home to ZinFest and the Grape Festival and is known internationally for... their delicious cherries? I still can't wrap my head around that one, but friends from outside the US have asked me, you're from Lodi? You must eat a lot of cherries. As someone from the town next to Lodi, umm.... no, I only knew Lodi had wine stuff.
And people come from all over the world to go skydiving out of the Lodi airport.
Growing up, I lived about a mile from the Lodi Skydiving center.
People used to land in our yard when I was a kid. Not all the time, but at least a couple times a year.
So, I suppose it's no surprise that when I turned thirty, I decided to jump out of a perfectly good plane. Although... how good the plane was or was not might be a little questionable.
Now, I swear this whole thing came out of a conversation that Mr. Browne was a part of. We were talking with some friends and for some reason skydiving came up with a few friends saying things along the lines of, "Man, that would be fun, I'd love to do that kind of thing."
And, well, while I didn't have a lot of money at the time--this is when I was in grad school, and after we had thrown away our winning Lucky for Life Ticket, it was still something I wanted to do. So, I decided to make a facebook event and I invited everyone who said that they would be interested.
I could have sworn I invited Mr. Browne, even though he didn't want to do it.
As the day came nearer and nearer, everyone who had been supposed to go sky diving with us except for our friend Rob backed out for one "reason" *cough*excuse*cough* or another.
So, the morning of, I got dressed--in spandex shorts because our friend Rob had said that he'd been uncomfortable bungee jumping when he'd done it because his clothes bunched up, so I searched what to wear. And I told Mr. Browne we were going to the Lodi Skydiving Center and I was going parachuting.
Well, Mr. Browne was not on my Facebook event. *whoops* but he went along with it anyway, super confused about *why* we were doing this and *why it had to be today*.
And then, we get there, and our buddy Rob shows up and his parents came to watch him.
And Mr. Browne is more confused than ever. Poor Mr. Browne. I need to work on my communication skills. I'm glad he goes along with my craziness.
We watched this video from the eighties or earlier, that told us to arch our backs in the sky like a banana. And that this skydiving "test program" was only allowed with special licensing and would likely be ending in the early nineties.
This was 2014.
So, I get introduced to my instructor/expert skydiver and introduced to my GoPro camera man.
We all sit straddling a bench inside this little airplane. There are two benches that go down either side and I'm clipped to a stranger, smooshed against my cameraman and our friend is two people behind me (the guy I'm clipped to plus his cameraman).
They open the door. And there's really no choice because each time someone jumps out of the plane, we all scooch forward.
And then it's my turn. The cameraman is hanging on to the outside of the plane, I'm clipped to a guy, looking down at tiny fields and away we go.
You're moving so quick or else the ground is so far away that there's no sensation of falling. The air whipped past my face and I was a banana with the guy in front of me and make all kinds of hand gestures to my cameraman.
*gasp* what are you thinking? Nothing obscene, peace signs and hearts and that kind of stuff.
And then, we land.
Before we jumped, my instructor told me we were going to land on our butts, so to put our legs out like sitting on the ground. Then, when we're almost twenty feet to the ground and coming in hot, he *changes his mind* and tells me to put my feet under me so we can land standing up.
I can't get my feet under me in time, so he lands standing up, and my feet are still sticking straight out like I'm sitting on the ground. Whoops.
Needless to say he wasn't happy with me. But don't change things literally in the last minute. I'd never done this before (or since).
Would you ever try skydiving? Or parachuting as we always called it when I was a kid--oh look, there's the parachuters--and we'd count them as they fell from the sky.
If you did, did they have a wonderful video that might have been older than you instructing you what to do?
Have a magic day!
🧁✨ April Browne✨🧁
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