Word: leape
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
When the huge foreign-born challengers showed up at Angels Camp, Calif., they filled U.S. competitors with dread. Back home in Cameroon, it was said, giant African frogs routinely leap up to 40 ft. How could such a performance fail to win the Calaveras County Frog Jump Jubilee...
Enthusiasts maintain that the thrills outweigh the risks. Jumpers leap headfirst from bridges, cranes and hot-air balloons, from 90 to 300 ft. above the ground, with only a long nylon-cased rubber bungee cord to break their fall. Anchored around the ankles or to a body harness, the wrist-thin cord is long enough to allow a few seconds of free fall before it stretches, dampening the force of the plunge. The jumper sometimes hurtles to within a few feet of the ground before rebounding skyward like a yo-yo as the cord snaps back to its original length...
...ritual practiced by the "land divers" of Pentecost Island in the South Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu. Every spring villagers there collect liana vines and wind them into long cords. Young men then scale high wooden towers, lash the vines around their ankles and jump. A successful leap is considered a demonstration of courage -- and a harbinger of a plentiful yam harvest...
...Sierras. Recognizing the sport's commercial potential, they quit their jobs as engineers and in May 1988 opened Bungee Adventures in Palo Alto. Recently the Kockelmans introduced hot-air balloons as jumping platforms. Every week 100 jumpers ranging in age from twelve to 72 pay the Kockelmans $99 to leap from a tethered balloon 150 ft. high...
...apocalyptic outrage, Malan succeeds by making the same leap of faith as his colleagues: he too believes that South Africa is capable of change. Thus far the evidence supports them. Only a few years ago, the government in Pretoria vowed to hold the racial line forever. Today it has come to recognize the inarguable truth that underlies all three books. George Bernard Shaw uttered it long ago, when apartheid was young: "Whilst we have prisons it matters little which of us occupies the cells...