Graduating and Skydiving
A few years ago, I went with a group of graduating seniors to a place outside of Atlanta to go skydiving. (Yes, it was with their parent’s permission.) None of us had ever done anything this adventurous, and we all shared a sense of both excitement and fear. After getting fitted and geared and watching a brief video, six or seven of us squeezed into a tiny plane. There were no seats or safety belts, just two low benches. Two of us were paying to jump, two were professional tandem partners, one was a photographer, and two were jumping solo “just for fun.” Mark (my tandem partner) and I sat on the floor, our shoulders pressed against what seemed like an awfully flimsy sliding door. The plane rumbled to life, bounced down the grass airstrip, and then we were airborne. As the plane started climbing, Mark kept an eye on what looked like a big, funny watch strapped to his wrist but was actually an altimeter. It looked like we were really high. “Only 2,000 feet,” he reassured me. We climb...