Re: [hookitt] Tom Manship
In reply to:
Rodney went first and then Tom
Which was his our standing jump order by the way. His reason for this, especially from a new object, "you go first man. Depending on how your jump goes, I may be climbing back down".
One night we were about 1/2 way up the "wheel" when a car pulls up and parks below. We see two people get out and make a mad dash to the ladder and they start climbing below us. We get off the ladder and onto a resting platform to wait for them. They finally get up to our level and Tom yells "BOO". These kids almost fall off the ladder they were so scared. Turned out to be a couple college kids messing around. Tom makes a friendly deal with them something like, "you don't tell anyone you saw us, and we won't kick your asses...fair enough?". He had a way with words.
Anyway, I jump first as usual, then he. Tom has a nasty what looked like a 270 off heading, we're at 300'. I always argued it was 315'. Tom insisted on 300'. He lands smack in the middle of a group of trees. I run over and there he is suspended in this tree about 15' up. Not a funny situation, but I couldn't keep from laughing. This was his first jump back from the bulldozer landing a couple weeks earlier. Long story short, after about 45 minutes of struggling to get his canopy out, he sends me into town to buy a pruning saw so we could cut some of the limbs to free his lines. It was a mess. The lady at the cash register says "doing some late night pruning sweety?"
I get back out to the site about an hour later and here is Tom all sprawled out on his back with his head on his stash bag(canopy inside), sound asleep.
Yea, the bulldozer landing. Here he is laying in the front end loader, and his Blackjack draped on top of the tractor...he deffinately could hit just about any target he wanted to.
I tell these stories remembering some of the "lighter sides" of our jumps together, and I know he wouldn't mind, but in all seriousness, Tom was a great teacher and was always about making sure the jump could be done.
I had the privilege of learning from Tom Manship, not just about BASE, but living your life to the fullest and having fun.
Rod
