Sometimes NRO is more like feminine-RO, but I like it anyway.
I always enjoy the columns by Myrna Blyth. This little excerpt is worth noting:
At the wedding, my son told his guy friends that they had not been invited to a wild and crazy bachelor party because there had not been one. Jonathan explained that his brother, the best man, had come up with lots of suggestions for ending his bachelorhood in amusing, even spectacular, ways. He had suggested, for example, that they go skydiving together. Jonathan reported, “I said to him, 'You must be kidding. I don’t want to go skydiving.' And then I realized my brother has been married four years and has a baby. Does he know something I don’t know?”
Yes.I'm kidding. Kidding, I say. (I've been married ten years and have two kids under 3.5 years of age.)
I'm going skydiving next week with an outfit named Cooter's Budget Skydive. The motto is "Y'all pack yer own parachute now, y'hear?"
That's interesting you bring up skydiving in the context of parenting. Our first baby, a strikingly handsome lad named Owen, just turned 10 weeks old, and when we went to get more life insurance, one of the questions we were asked is whether we have gone skydiving in the last 12 months. Apparently its considered a dangerous enough activity to warrant a separate questions from insurance underwriters.
ReplyDeleteI used to be a lot more interested or intrigued by extreme or dangerous sports. But my thinking has been shaped more recently by what I'd like to think is a bit of godly circumspection. The Heidelberg Catechism, in its exposition of the sixth commandment, says that in addition to my duties to others, "I am not to recklessly endanger myself either" (LD 40, Q&A 105).
It is impossible to conduct an intelligent discussion on the subject of risky behavior like sky-diving without first reading The Top Of The Hill by Irwin Shaw.
ReplyDeleteJust to be clear, I AM NEVER GOING SKYDIVING, unless I receive a word from the Lord. The only way I'm jumping out of an airplane is if it's on fire and plummeting to the earth.
ReplyDeleteDude, next to proposing to my fiancee, skydiving was the most liberating and exciting thing I've ever done. For a full minute of freefall, I was free of everything. No worries, no fear, no sense of mortality. Only a complete wonder at the beauty of this planet.
ReplyDeleteThanks, James. Reading your post was liberating and exciting.
ReplyDeleteI did have the experience once of going "indoor" skydiving...I think it was outside of Dollywood or Pigeon Forge or something.
ReplyDeleteThey have a giant cylindrical room with mesh gratings on the top and bottom, and thinly padded on the walls. A giant fan blows underneath and if you propery frame your body to make enough resistance, you can *float* in midair. It was pretty tough to stay up for very long, because any slight move would shift your profile and send you hurtling into a wall or the floor.
I saw the place and YES it was on a trip to Dollywood when I saw it. We simply observed. I seem to recall the person inside the cylinder was having some difficulty making it look like great fun.
ReplyDeleteNow, I'm hankering for another trip to that non-prestige location Pigeon Forge, TN. I'm just a plain old southern kid without airs to put on. I like outlet malls, don't aspire to a much better restaurant than Longhorn, and play a little golf if it doesn't cost too much.