What’s a jump story?  A jump story is a tale of adventure.  Usually related to parachuting.  All parachutists, recreational, military, smokejumper and some lucky pilots have them.  Those of you who know someone who tells jump stories are rolling your eyes and thinking here we go!  Few things sear images into memory like life and death experiences.

After a certain number of jumps you stop thinking every one is a near death experience.  Somehow other things slip into the equation and make the experience memorable enough to merit a story.  Humor is the primary element, adventure is another; it doesn’t take much to qualify.

Most jumpers have a twisted sense of humor by conventional standards.  I remember an end of the season party in Fairbanks in the early 70’s.  We were standing around a campfire drinking beer.  One of the guys kept trying to sneak up on the more inebriated, grab them, and try to throw them in the fire.  That’s what I mean about sense of humor.  I remember one jumper who would throw his razor sharp knife at you if you asked to borrow it.  Guess he didn’t like having people borrow his knife.  Maybe someone forgot to return it once.

Back to the party in Fairbanks.  Like all smokejumper parties there was an abundance of new jump stories, or recycled stories that were embellished to the point they sounded new.   One of the pilots threw out the observation that all jump stories start out with “there I was, and this ain’t no s***!”  I think he was trying to get a rise out of someone and start a fight.  He seemed disappointed when we all agreed with him.  Who wanted to explain to the boss why he punched out one of the pilots?  Nobody ever threw one of them in the campfire either.

We needed the pilots.  They were our main transportation and our supply line.  We wanted them on our side.  They rang the bell that told the spotter when to throw the fire packs and other cargo out of the plane.  You didn’t want your stuff hung up in the trees.  It happened often enough without the pilot being pissed at you.  I remember a jumper who was always giving one of the pilots a hard time.  He never did figure out why his stuff ended up in the trees or was dropped so low that the cargo chute didn’t have time to open.

Some of our pilots were career Forest Service.  They really knew the terrain and were very conscientious.  Some were seasonal contractors, they were very good pilots but didn’t always know their way around the forest.  Some of the contract pilots drank a wee bit.  Particularly the ones that spent part of the year flying in Southeast Asia.  The Viet Nam War was on.  After the war, many still flew for the “government.”  Go figure.   Flying and drinking and drinking and driving was a way of life for a very small number of our pilots.  The DUI’s usually caught up with them and they got fired.  They had to go back to Southeast Asia to fly.  One in particular comes to mind, we called him Turbo.  He never really got lost.  Flying with him was a real test of how well you could keep your lunch.  I didn’t know a Twin Otter could pull so many “G’s.”  I remember a couple of passes where the G’s had the cargo stuck to the floor so hard I couldn’t throw it out of the plane.

The pilots looked out for us.  I think they regarded us as their kids.  The local Shakey’s Pizza Parlor in Boise started an all you can eat for lunch buffet.  We regarded it as a challenge.    We took a walkie talkie with us because there had been some lightning on the forest the night before.  Most of the crew went.  By 2:30 we were blacklisted.  We averaged two large pizzas apiece along with at least a pitcher and a half of beer.  When we got back to the loft the engines on the C-47 were running and the boss was pissed!  We had forgotten to turn-on the walkie talkie.

Personally, I think Roger heard the call but hadn’t had his fill of pizza and turned it off.   When we got on the plane I heard the pilot talking on the radio to the dispatcher who thought we were over the forest looking for the fire.  When the plane got back to Boise the spotter had to clean a lot of liquid pizza and beer out of the C-47.  We loved our pilots.

It is all relative.  I am really not an “old guy.”  Virginia, my mother-in-law lived to be 90.  She often referred to my wife and I as babies.  Store clerks sometimes regard me with the martyred patience reserved for alzheimer’s patients.  That’s OK, I can only hear about 20% of what they are saying.

In my mind’s eye I am about 24, at my physical peak; until I look in the mirror.  I am aways shocked to see my Dad’s reflection looking back at me as I brush my teeth.  Terry, my wife, insists that we are middle aged.  I wish.

The first insult came from AARP when I turned 50.  They had the brass to offer me membership, for a price.

In my youth I was a Smokejumper.  We reveled in the arrogance of peak physical condition and elite firefighter status.  In the Boise Unit, if one of our number stayed with the crew long enough to reach their 30th birthday we did the right thing and had a “keggar.”   The theme for the party was a funeral.  They were officially over-the-hill at 30.  The McCall Unit may have had the same tradition, the two crews were pretty much joined at the hip.  We trained our rookies, we called them “Neds,” together in McCall.

In those days candidates over the age of 27 were too old to be considered for new hires.  The rare ‘jumper who attained the ancient age of 40 was retired from parachute jumping.  At that age they had usually been in management positions for a long time and rarely did more than routine qualifying jumps with occasional rescue or fire jumps when necessary.

Laws have changed.  Now, Smokejumpers can jump and fight fire as long as they can pass the physical.  Women are Smokejumpers.  A remarkable number of hardy souls from my era stayed in until the new mandatory retirement age of 55 or optional retirement at age 50.  Sooner or later we all got hurt.  Some were maimed or killed.  Some endured less severe career ending injuries.  The lucky ones healed up enough to keep jumping or voluntarily leave the program.  After a few years we all started getting up slowly in the morning to take inventory of our various aching parts.  I managed seven years without serious injury.

I decided I was getting too old for the job at age 25.  The smoke, heavy packs, long hours of firefighting, and slamming into the ground were taking their toll.  I had breathed too much smoke, my lungs were the weak link.  I was also eating NSAIDS like candy.   Arthritis arrived at 40.  I had a bone scan a few years ago and made the mistake of looking at the image before the final diagnosis.  I thought I was full of cancer from the top of my head through my pelvis.  The doctors were confused until I explained my history.  They said my scan looked like that of a pro football player.

I became an administrator.  That lasted until age 31 when I became an FBI Agent.  The FBI Academy was a bit rigorous but nothing like smokejumper training.  The work was fascinating, occasionally strenuous, often stressful, and the best job in the world.  After a short time, nothing humans did was a surprise.  The best part was when I least expected it, I often saw the best of humanity.

I retired in 2005 with 32 years of service; 22 years in the FBI and 10 years in the Forest Service.  I felt like I had stepped into a tornado in 1983 and it spit me out in 2005.  I was fortunate to be under the Civil Service Law Enforcement and Firefighter retirement.  I loved the work and would do it again in a minute.  No reservations.  My health has started to wane.  It was time to enjoy my wife and family, slow down, and do some traveling.

It is not the years, it’s the miles.  In my case anyway.  Mentally I am about 24, physically I am sometimes about 75.  It’s all relative.

My career as a journalist started at age eleven.  I had been tormenting the local Area Distribution Manager for the Sacramento Bee since I was nine.  Technically, you had to be twelve to be old enough.  If you waited until you were twelve to ask for a route you failed to show enough initiative and started out at a disadvantage to us nine year olds who had been hustling substitute jobs from the local paperboys.

Doug, the local paperboy, lived up the street.  He had been our paperboy for several years and was reaching the age where the ‘fumes were interfering with his career.  It was getting difficult for him to meet the bell on Sunday Morning.

My Dad was the one who clued me in.  The fumes?  Perfume and gasoline.  They start affecting teenage boys at different ages, but in my era it was around age sixteen.  That’s when you were old enough to get your driver’s license.

Patsy, Doug’s sister, had been delivering his papers since he got his license.  She was a year younger than me but was losing interest.  I was their substitute, had been since I was nine.  The Area Manager was skeptical of me because of my age.  I kept reminding him that I was a year older than Patsy.  He said he couldn’t buy that one since the route was actually Doug’s.  I think he was just testing my resolve.

When I was substituting I always got all the papers to the right customers, pretty much on time.  In those days you could make about twenty-five bucks a month as a paperboy.   A virtual fortune.  Sure beat the hell out of selling the Saturday Evening Post for a quarter; or Grit, for a nickel a copy.  Don’t even mention selling Christmas Cards.

One day when I was eleven, Patsy told me that she was quitting.  I don’t really remember why but I think she had finally saved up enough for a horse.  Doug called Mr. Lovell and formally resigned.  I was hovering around when he came by to pick up the canvas bags and receipt books.  The interview was grueling, but since I knew the route I was a shoe-in.  Patsy even vouched for me.

I always read the front page, the funnies and the editorials.  I learned about people, about economics, journalistic integrity and bureaucracy.  The most important survival skill was handling mean dogs.

Particularly Sophie’s dog.  She was the smartest kid in my class at school.  She lived about half-way through the route.  Her mother could not hear so they had a big Lab that guarded the place.  Particularly from the paperboy.  I always kept a few choice rocks in my canvas newspaper bag for emergencies, but I preferred to use detente.  I hated to use the rocks because I had to answer to Sophie.  Not only was she smart, she was as tough as most of the boys.  I wasn’t afraid of her but I didn’t want to tangle with her either.  That dog chewed a hole in more than one set of my canvas bags while I was in full retreat.

The best thing, after the money, was you could win trips to the State Fair, Disneyland, the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, and other places if you got enough new customers.  There were regular contests at the same time each year.  They regularly sent solicitors out to walk your route with you and sign up new customers.  I learned that customers who stopped their paper while they were out of town were actually new customers when they resumed service.  That was how you really got good stats.  I wasn’t too sure about the practice at first.  The solicitors were eager to write them up since we both got credit for a new customer.  The more new customers we got, the happier everybody was.  It was all in how you wrote the story.  I sure enjoyed the trips and got to know a lot of my fellow journalists from around the state while we were traveling. I was never challenged with the fact that the overall customer count on my route did not seem to reflect all of the new customers I got every year.  It was journalistic integrity.  There was more truth in our stats than in a lot of the editorials.

I learned to deal with customers who didn’t have enough money on hand to pay.  There were also a few customers who complained about everything.  I ultimately refused to deliver to some of them.  It was an enlightening, empowering and enriching experience.   It was all business.  We paid for all of our papers whether or not our customers did.  We were expected to deliver seven days a week 365 days a year; regardless of weather.

When I was fifteen, I actually had two routes for about a year.  The money was good but  I was burning out.  About the time I got my driver’s license I learned that I could make a lot more money washing dishes at a local restaurant and my early life as a journalist was over.

Writing a blog should be a piece of cake.