Jim Hickey died BASE jumping at the Perrine Bridge on May 7th, 2015.
Jim was a rare and unusual spirit. I first met him nearly a decade ago, when he took the Fundamentals course. It wasn’t even called the Fundamentals course yet. And I was teaching out of a classroom in the HomeBASE Hostel here in Twin Falls, which most BASE jumpers have never even heard of these days.
Almost alone of all the students I’ve had (and there have been many), Jim had an ability to get me to go out and do jumps with him. He liked to call them “Jim and Tom’s adventures” and he would send me these long rambling emails with his plans for our next adventure. He was the one who dragged me across the country to jump a building with him, years after I’d decided I was done jumping solid, slider down objects. He was the one who got me to take road trips around the western US, taking him to lots of different objects. He had even convinced me to take a European trip with him. It saddens me now that we won’t ever do that together.
I know that he made plenty of jump with other people, and paid some other people for BASE coaching at different times. But he always seemed to want to come back and jump with me. In some ways, I think he viewed me as a good luck charm, because he had been hurt several times jumping without me. It hurts me to have finally failed him in that role.
Jim was 73 years old. Unusually, for a jumper his age, he was not a lifelong skydiver. He started jumping very late in life, around retirement. He liked to tell the story of how he decided to start jumping, and I remember it well.
Jim worked as a municipal accountant for the city of Los Angeles for almost his entire career. It’s hard to reconcile this career with his BASE jumping, skydiving and personal adventures, but if you knew him, it fits well. He had a friend he worked with for nearly 20 years. When his friend retired, he told Jim that he was glad he could finally do all the traveling and adventure he hadn’t been able to do while he was working. Jim would always pause at this point in the story. Then he’d look you in the eye and say “6 months later he was dead. And I said ‘I’m not going to let that happen to me.’”
So when Jim retired, he set out to experience all the adventures he’d always dreamed of. In the first year after retirement he made 1400 skydives. He tried skysurfing, flew wingsuits, traveled to boogies, and jumped. He did jumps that very few other people had ever done. He was fond of telling of his burning parachute jumps at Eloy, which only a handful of people had ever made. And he had made two—one during the day and one at night.
He also did some commercials and was featured in some articles. I think that his aging, white haired appearance combined with his adventures made him very appealing to a certain demographic. I remember my parents calling to tell me that they’d read an article about him in the AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) magazine.
His adventures eventually brought him to BASE, which is how I met him.
He took the course with Blake, Kareem, and Stu. I’m having trouble remember everyone’s last names. It seems so long ago.
It was the first time I had someone else teach the fingertrapping and static line lesson. And Serena was really nervous about doing it. But Jim always remember that she had taught him. I remember him telling me, many times, that she had given him a hemostat during that session. He had a way of re-telling the same stories over and over again. Then again, people tell me that I do that same thing.
I remember Jim telling me that he wanted to start BASE then because he was afraid that as he aged his reflexes and perceptions would deteriorate, and that BASE would be beyond him if that happened. He wanted to experience BASE jumping before his physical condition deteriorated. Which was kind of odd, because Jim was one of the most physically fit 70 year olds I’ve ever met. He was old, yes, and he was definitely slower and less alert than he would have been 30 years before, but he was also very capable and always managed to pull of his jumps well—even the ones that I was concerned would prove too much for him.
After the Fundamentals course, I saw him occasionally when he’d visit Twin Falls. After a few years, he asked me if I would do some coaching for him, at the Bridge. For several years, I’d see him once or twice a year for a couple days of coaching.
Then, he asked me if I would be willing to do a couple days of coaching somewhere else. He had been invited to do a building jump in Mexico, and he wanted to jump a building with me first. Partly I think he wanted to do the jump with me. And partly he wanted to do his first building jump with help and supervision.
Jim and I flew across the country and did the jump, which went well. There were some other adventures on that trip, too, and some classic Jim moments.
After that, we did a couple other trips together too. We jumped in Northern California, in Arizona and in Nevada. We were chased by a police helicopter, had to disassemble a parachute to lower him down a canyon wall (he’d dislocated his shoulder trying to climb out after a successful jump), got lost and hiked for hours through the desert, climbed down sketchy fourth class terrain after encountering bad conditions at the exit point…the list goes on.
Jim loved talking to people we’d encounter while jumping and fooling them. He talked to tower workers, security guards, even police officers, and none of them suspected that this polite, bespectacled, white haired old man was actually scoping out their objects for a BASE jump. I still remember the double take from the state trooper who caught us doing a jump and couldn’t believe that Jim was a BASE jumper. We eventually got off with no charges, too.
Somehow, Jim always managed to talk me into things I’d never have done with, or for, anyone else. Maybe it was his boyish enthusiasm, which contrasted so much with his appearance. Maybe it was the fact that he knew I would be patient with his ideas, or the patience we had with each other traveling. Maybe it was just that he liked me.
That was Jim. Old, and with many of the characteristics of age. White hair, thick glasses and a slight stoop. His hearing was going, and his physical condition wasn’t what it probably had been years before. But with an undiminished boyish enthusiasm for the great adventure of his life.
He was my friend. And I miss him.
