Jumping for Joy

Part One Why you shouldn’t run carrying scissors Throughout your life you will foolishly do what your parents warned you against, despite all their wisdom and experience, you felt compelled to prove them wrong, prove your invincibility, or just prove how stupid you can actually be. I have compiled a hand full of stories about some of my life lessons, as I wrote these I tried my best to recall which of the above choices I was trying to prove. To be honest with ya I got nothing, but I’m pretty sure my parents would have picked the latter. Like running with scissors some of these stories seem a little reckless, like being one of the charter students in a skydiving school. And some of the stories are just about the change in how I perceived life in general as I matured (yes I only meant physically). I hope you enjoy the stories, I also hope you listened to your parents better than I did. Jumping For Joy (The power of teenage hormones) Long long ago in a not so distant land I began making the transition from a meager dependant into what I considered to be “an independent man of 18”. It had little bearing on me that I was still living in my parent’s house, eating my parent’s food, and driving my parent’s car. I was now 18 and clung to such “realities” as I could now be literally “hung” by a jury of my piers, shot at by foreigners over a cause I would more than likely never understand and most important of all, vote for the next poor fool that was fighting to spend the next four years of his life being criticized and scrutinized over every action and breath he takes. All of these plus the added boost from my raging hormones gave me, “an independent man of 18” the unquestionable right to do as I pleased whenever I pleased. This leads me to the premise of this story as I would never have done this if I had not been “an independent man of 18” with a better than average hormone boost. It all started when I decided to help bolster my less than stellar Junior College GPA by taking a no brainier elective course, so I selected Advanced SCUBA Diving. I know it sounds tame enough but keep reading it gets better. As it turns out this particular class was being taught by a semi-retired, forty-something, ex-Marine Special Forces instructor (see I told you it would get better) by the name of Dean Weston. Mr. Weston was a 6 foot square by 3 foot thick slab of mussel with the worn chiseled features reminiscent of Robert Shaw in the movie Jaws. During the course of the course I not only learned repetitive dive tables & underwater salvage techniques but the proper etiquette on how to use a flamethrower and the proper way to lob a hand grenade. The class was wonderful, it was an incredible feeling getting college credit to be diving up and down the California coast every week. Of coarse there was Mr. Weston, who being Mr. Weston, somewhat of an adventurer, phalanthpust, entrepreneur, and just an all around charismatic guy, seemed to be a local icon everywhere we went. As the semester wore on I became more and more enamored with my namesake instructor and took every opportunity to strike up a conversation with him. During a couple of these conversations he had mentioned how he was going to give up working for the college and open a sky diving school as soon as he had enough capital. I remember thinking that was a risky proposition on, oh so many levels, but it seemed with him being, what I then considered as old enough to know better I just left it at that. Well as the class came to a close, I finally relented to become one of Dean’s first costumers. One week later I found myself looking for Dean’s home/classroom while trying to simultaneously read his map navigate my VW van up the steep windy roads of the Laguna Beach hillside and come up with a good excuse to back out of the class.