"If Wine is Fruit, Then Vodka

"If wine is fruit, then Vodka is a vegetable." Jann Arden

On Saturday night, I did my best to ensure that everybody got their vegetables.

The banquet on Saturday evening was followed by an epic party. That's as it should have been, it was a party that was 17 months in the making. As soon as the last load of the day had landed dinner was served up on the front lawn. The main purpose of the meal was to serve as a cushion for the alcohol that was being consumed at an ever accelerating pace. After he had levied and collected the days beer fines Brian had passed the hat and come back with a truckload of beer. People had brought wine and their favorite liquor; I had a liter and a half sized bottle of Grey Goose along with a bottle of Crystal Skull Vodka. I quickly became one of the most popular people at the party as I doled out lemonade and Vodka as fast as I could. By the time the drumming group that was part of the entertainment showed up the festivities were in high gear. When the DJ took over there were so many bodies leaping and gyrating on the deck that I thought it was in danger of collapsing. A had actually taken dancing lessons a few years ago with a friend of mine and and staked out a piece of the deck where I wore out 3 different dance partners doing a blended hip-hop techno-swing thing before I made the mistake of inviting Josee to join me. Next time I'm going to ask her to dance first, before the others ones wear me down and soften me up a little. Benoit Lemay didn't need to cut the Vodka down with lemonade, and was swigging it straight out of the skull shaped bottle. He barely looks old enough to drive let alone gulp down moutfulls of hard liquor like a professional coarse drinker. For myself, when I read of the evils of drinking, I stop reading. A lot of the girls were wearing short skirts and sleeveless dresses in spite of all the bruises they were displaying. One had a perfect series of hand prints from wrist to shoulder, evidence of over enthusiastic gripping from the people flying beside her. Diane got slammed into the back of the door frame by somebody as she was diving out and has a bruise on her shoulder that looks like she got hit with a baseball bat.

We left before things got out of hand. Okay, we left before I got out of hand.  Nobody ever calls you up to tell you something good you did the night before when you were completely trashed. Nobody's ever said "Lawrence, you got ripped last night and painted the orphanage".

The next morning it looked like I was off the hook for the POPS jump as 9:30 approached and there were nowhere near enough people on the drop zone to make an attempt. Then there was a last minute flood of people giving us 36 qualified participants. Which is when Martin stepped over and said he would be happy to organize the jump. I was saved! In the end all I did was collect the names of the participants.

36 People plus video was just enough to fill the Sherpa, and all of us poured out the tailgate of that beast like lemmings into the sea. It built fast, and was probably the most solid and quietest formation that had been built all week. Again, it looked like we had it, but one girl went low, and no amount of struggling on her part could get her back up to the formation. Brian said later that she was in tears as she walked back from the landing area. I felt sorry for her, at one time or another everybody goes low becoming "That Guy". I've been there, looking up at all those people looking down at you. A miscalculation about how much weight to add, wearing the wrong suit, diving a couple of seconds too long, or getting taken out by someone on exit, is all it takes.

People were still jumping, but we were done, and made the rounds to say our goodbyes. We sat on the deck with all the Whuffos for a while before we left and watched as Martin came in from the landing area with a Tandem rig on his back and in bare feet. All week long he had been wearing lime green crocs shaped like huge monster feet. He had forgotten to do up the straps before he left the plane and lost them in free fall. Diane wondered aloud if his passenger had any idea how privileged they were to have had him as their Instructor. Even if he does wear funny shoes.

We stopped at a Tim Horton's on the way back. As we sat eating our lunch and I looked around at all the people, I was struck by how normal everything was. We had spent the last 7 days completely immersed in skydiving. We were at the DZ every day for 8, and rarely left before dark. This place didn't have piles of nylon and micro-line all over the floor, no turbine engines screaming in the background. The place was crowded, but there was no sign of the energy like there was at the place we had just left. Nobody was damaged, no bruises, no limping, no knee braces or ice packs. All the members of Mission 100 had spent a week busting their asses doing everything they could to make it happen, and the rest of the world had blissfully carried on. 17 Months had come down to a week of intense effort on the part of a hell of a lot of people all working towards a common goal.

Suddenly I felt sorry for all those people in the restaurant.

'To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people merely exist, that's all."
Oscar Wilde