I drove down to the World Free Fall Convention last Thursday night with Alien, a Bang Boom Pow cohort. Thor entertained us with a very active 360 degree lightning and rain storm. It rained with such severity at times that most other drivers felt it necessary to pull over to the side of the road and wait it out. During the worst of these torrential downpours it seemed best to reduce our speed to 45mph, it was really coming down hard. The thunder was rumbling softly in the distance as lightening crashed all around us. We supplied an eclectic musical score for the light show in the sky. As luck would have it, every time we stopped for gas or a break, the rain either stopped completely or reduced itself to a light drizzle. Invariably a few minutes after we got back on the highway the rain would come back full force. About twenty minutes before we arrived in Quincy the rain clouds left the skies allowing us to view vast galaxies of stars. We easily found our way to Camp Hinckley where many of our friends were very busy liberating logical thought from their minds. After much joyous hug filled greetings we settled in and cracked open some cold ones. While many conversations rambled in many directions we sat and watched the last of a meteor shower as it passed through the heavens above us. The moments passed into hours and little by little people slipped away into the darkness to sleep. The last surviving conversation funneled into a sophomoric romp of double-entendres and naughty stories, of which I interjected as many as I could. I slipped away into the darkness when I began to fear the dawn might catch me if I didn't find my way to my nest soon.

I woke to sunny blue skies Saturday morning. After breakfast some clouds blew in and I got on a helicopter load. Al, Ken, Josh, Suzanne and Jeff chose to bare it all and jump naked. Up to three people sit in the middle and five people sit on the floor on each side of the helicopter with their feet hanging out.     Someone decided that there should be a naked side and a clothed side, I didn't disagree. The climb to altitude is worth the price of the ticket. On take off the helicopter snaps up about twelve feet and then instantly tips on it's side and flies sideways across the adjacent field with the jumpers feet dangling just inches above the top of the corn. Without any warning the pilot makes a 90 degree turn upward, with the nose of the helicopter pointed toward the sky you climb almost straight up. All of this happens at full speed until you feel it start to stall. The climb rate slows, stops, and then you feel the helicopter start to slide back toward earth on the path it just climbed. The weightless stall lasts a couple of seconds then the pilot rolls the helicopter onto it's side with the nose pointed mostly toward earth and you start racing down. Sometime not too soon before impact the helicopter levels off and screams horizontally above the corn with about ten feet between the jumpers feet and the top of the soon to be harvested crop. You then head straight for an unsuspecting tree line. The pilot banks into a turn and clears the tree tops by inches as the helicopter climbs and turns with its side facing down, it was impossible not to flinch. A few more surreal banks, climbs and dives and we buzz the landing area close enough to hear the people on the ground shouting. A few more dips and turns before we start the final accent.    The steady climb to altitude gives you a few minutes to look around and try to soak in what just happened. At 5,500 feet you get a one minute call, take off your seat belt and get ready to jump. The pilot slows the forward speed to almost nothing so there is no relative wind when you exit. You get a true sensation of falling because you can't fly until you reach terminal velocity. The second jump I exited backwards out of the helicopter and stayed on my back looking up as I fell away. I could feel myself picking up speed and as soon as I hit terminal the falling sensation slipped away and I turned belly to earth knowing that I was then ready to start to fly.

Team BANG BOOM POW (Love Pony, Special Ed, Alien and Wonder Boy) will shock and amaze you with their resplendent skydiving capacity and their insatiable lust for truth, justice and the Chicagoland way.

As team members of BANG BOOM POW rolled swiftly through the gates of Quincy a hushed whisper could be heard riding on the wind, "all is as it should be".