I must apologize to my readers. The last story was fake news. Yes, Cathie broke her leg, that part is true, but how she really broke it is a different story. First I must explain the reason for the first story. When Cathie broke her leg, she was really embarrassed and she didn't want her fellow sport aficionados to think she was stupid. So she asked me to make up a story about how her 91 year old father had fallen on her. It was a believable story, he wasn't a reader of the blog nor does he have a computer, so what would be the harm, right? I wrote it up and published it thinking he would never know that he got blamed for something he didn't do. I felt a little guilty and was also concerned about my blog being lumped in with the Washington Post and the New York Times. But as it turned out he did find out and boy was he was pissed. He threatened to disinherit me if I didn't publish a retraction. As an avid reader of Gassaway's Adventures I wanted to express how sorry I am if you were misled or harmed in anyway by the story. It was not my intent to besmirch Cathie's father, but to protect Cathie from any humiliation. I now realize that I made a grave error in judgement. Now it's time to come clean.
Cathie, was skydiving. Yes, I know it's hard to believe, but she has become quite daring in retirement and felt the need to eliminate things on her bucket list. I asked her not to do it, but she's very independent and I was talking on deaf ears. It was the same way when she bought her dune buggy.
Anyway, she's been jumping for sometime now and up until three weeks ago, all was fine. Now as for me, I won't even go and watch. Who in their right mind would jump out of a perfectly good airplane? But she has chosen to do it and who am I to say no. First she did some tandem jumps but within a short time she was doing free falls on her own. I must say I was somewhat impressed as she is really uncoordinated. Heck, she can't even use the crutches the doctor gave her for fear of falling and breaking something else.
I tried to get the video, but the skydiving place has copyrighted it so they can use it in training new jumpers. You could go and see it if you sign up for lessons at Skydive San Diego. I did manage to get some still photos from some of her fellow jumpers.
Hard to tell, but that's her on the right, 5th one back. This was called a summer jump in bathing suits.
There she is top center. This was the jump where she broke her leg.
So you ask, "what actually happened?" The jump was going fine, perfect weather, no problems with the plane or the exit. She said she jumped at 12, 000 feet and was in free fall to 2,500 feet. She opened her chute and everything was fine, maneuvering for the landing zone, it was looking like she was right on target. And she was lined up perfectly. I was told by others that she nailed the landing, remaining on her feet as she landed. She picked up her chute and started walking to the clubhouse. That's when it happened. She tripped over the curb. I told you she was uncoordinated. And now you see why she was so embarrassed.
I feel so relieved to get this off my chest. Here at Gassaway's Adventures we have high standards and I can assure you that something like this will never happen again. Until next time.... I mean next post, I mean, well, you know what I mean.
