drop towers

I used to be terrified of heights which did not help me much when going through parachute training in the Air Force and I had to put on a very brave face in front of my young children when we went to amusement park. Neither of them ended up with my fear of falling.

I would go on a drop tower if I was absolutely sure of one of the following possibilities:

1) I would have a wonderful time

or

2) In the event of a fall I would die instantly.

J E

Or 3.: If there were no happy "emoticons" with happy expressions left.

This picture* under your name: Is'nt that Gary Moore? (former TV personality).


* What are those visuals called?...I'm drawing a blank. They offer free ones everywhere on the net nowdays...sounds Arabic?

Final: FOX; anything but. Note how their news lead-ins invariably draw biased conclusionary editorial?...thier "crawl" news is lousy with biased editorial. Never Fair. Never Balanced.

Gary Moore had a better haircut. He was also funnier than I am and the only person on the planet who really liked Durwood Kirby.


It's called an avatar (for some reason, it can't be called a picture. )

And FoxSpews is a source of never-ending entertainment for me, not much for news, but then that's not their business anyway.

Hey, tell us about some high places you really love/hate..... I can't go onto my fire escape without doing some deep breathing.

Joe

what I like
I like the droip zone tower, pittfall, stuff like that that makes you fall on purpose.

I had a plan to go sky diving last January but it didn't pan out, shall have to try again next Spring or Summer.

This fellow I dated a short time wanted to take me sky diving. No sirreee bob! I think he was the one with the red porsche that kept edging the side of the road on curves..

You should have went.

Nemmee.

Joe - I alsp have a phobia of heights. Flying in airplanes or helicopters doesn't bother me, but being much more than 20 feet above grade gets to me.

I love rides that go around in circles, but I'll take a pass on ones that go up and down.

Jim -- I figured my phobia out years ago. It's not really fear of heights it's fear of being injured. I am much more able to cope if I am at a height where death is certain than I am at twenty feet where the most I can hope for is a smashed plevis.

I ride all the rides. The high ones just bring a bit more gasping and red-facedness than the whirly-gigs.

Joe

I was on a drop ride some number of years ago (I can't remember). At amusement parks, as many of you have probably noticed, there are the machines that take pictures of the people on the ride at certain points to try to entice the tourists into purchasing over-priced photography. Anyway, I looked so incredibly bored in every shot. In one, my head was leaning up against the side of the ride and I was yawning. Now, you might ask, how can I be sure that I was yawning and not screaming in terror and resting my head against the ride to calm my nerves? Well, I'm sure because I was indeed bored the entire time that I was on that ride. It just didn't thrill me much....

Now there's a man who can relax anywhere.

Heh, there are times when I am unable to relax... But on thrill rides? Yeah, I guess I can.

I have no problem with roller coasters, but I figure that my tax dollars pay for towers and bridges meant to contain people. Also, as for parachuting, I pay to stay inside the airplane, not jump out of it. Not my thing. I also have a fear of heights.

I never get on the big roller coasters or drops because I'm chicken!

Best "I told you so" story I have about it:

I was at a state fair with several friends. They all wanted to go on whatever big roller coaster was there. I offered to hold their purses, cameras, etc. while they went.

They laughed at me, handed over all their stuff, and climbed in. The cars got to the top of the first incline, and the ride got stuck! They sat up there for about half an hour. Then they had to climb down the scaffolding. I got lots of pictures.

At least they weren't stuck upside-down! That would have been much less humorous.

I have to admit at this point I don't know what drops are. When I was a kid I rode seven roller coasters in a row at Chicago's Riverside(dale?) park, long since closed. I didn't really get a fear of heights until I was nearly fifty, on a narrow road on a cliff with no rails that was also a complex curve, no way to see what was coming... and had a whachacallit experience, ah, they call it panic. Yeah. I got to the client's house in this desolate place and she mentioned, among all the bits of information, that three people had recently gone over the cliff.

I had to pull myself together to get past that spot on the way back, and about two seconds later there was a truck coming in the other direction. No way one could pass, little room for back up at all, much less backup mistakes. That did it.

I was a happy girl when I hit the coast highway.

My fear wasn't unreasonable, but it dug in.

Maybe there was precedent, when a friend romped right to the edge of the grand canyon and peered over, some years before. I mean the edge, as in within ten inches of the edge. Sheeeeeeeeeeet. Well, she was a veteran hiker, and I wasn't all that afraid, just a little wimpy, standing a few feet back. But that might have preconditioned me.

The skydiving thing was earlier. Even then I took one look at my own competence with equipment (I was a lab tech but not always the fastest to get physical sequence) and the idea of voluntarily hurling myself out of an airplane door, and said no. I sometimes tell here that my dad was in the plane that photo'd down into an early a-bomb explosion. That is bravery, whate'er we all now think of a-bombs, and was for him for a cause, not a sport. I used to play with his parachute seat, it was nice and bouncy, and I really regret ever getting rid of it somewhere in my early adulthood, not just one more tattered thing, but I think that was when I was trying to sell my parents' house to pay for my mom's nursing and I got rid of stuff.

The things we gave away gain in grace.

Anyway, I don't care much about drops, though I understand they could be fun.