Word: maclaughlin
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Outside the trailer a stocky man says that he's Bruce Maclaughlin, the instructor and jump master that will who will later on be the one who goes up in the plane with us and gives us the push out the door. Maclaughlin is as sharp-eyed and as brusque as a boot camp sergeant. He spreads his legs, arching and throwing his head back yelling, "ARCHTHOUSAND, TWO THOUSAND, THREE THOUSAND, FOUR THOUSAND, FIVE THOUSAND, SIX THOUSAND, LOOK" he looks to his left heel. "LOOK." He looks to a release on his right pelvis, "PULL". He pulls the release. "PUNCH...
...thousand, eight hundred feet above the trailer a single engine plane stalls, glides and drops two black dots. They grow. Their parachutes don't open but Maclaughlin ignores the two plummeting people. He looks steely-eyed at his charges, each of us with our heads tossed back, eyes wide open, jaws dropped, certain the two divers will, in less than 17 seconds, bounce and splatter on the grass. "Ooooo, ooooo" we say as two chutes blossom and the jumpers silently glide toward earth. Maclaughlin's brows are down, his lips pursed, his eyes still locked in on his students. "Snap...
...Maclaughlin laces his boots, puts on his jump suit, goggles and helmet. As jump master, he oversees the strapping in of the first three he will guide out of the plane. He picks three of us and indifferently directs us toward the suit up area. He kids us although we are grim faced and jokes with his comrades with the same type of wildness that would make him chuckle and shrug when hearing of a chain saw massacre...
...says. I move one hand out the door but it is forced back inside by the wind. I try again, grasping onto the wing strut. I force my feet out on the step, the first and last step, pivot, face forward and raise my right leg as Maclaughlin taught me. A torrent of wind pushes against me, against every muscle...