43
(or so) years of PARACHUTIST magazine
If you have access to any old issues of PARACHUTIST and want to contribute
to this web site, you can scan the cover and email the file to me. Or
you can send
the issue(s) to me and I'll scan them and return them to you.
So why did I do this? I dunno. Just sounded like something fun
to do. A buddy of mine pointed out the fact that I'm about to receive
my 30 year membership certificate from USPA. Shocked the crap out of
me but I did the math and, sure enough, starting skydiving in 1975 at age
22 and now, 2005 at age 52......yep, that's 30 years. So I took at
look a this HUGE stack of PARACHUTIST magazines that I saved for some reason,
blew the dust off of them, and thought, "Hey, I could scan them and put them
on my web site!". Why? I still don't know. All I can say
is that each month for the past 360 months, I always was anxious to
check out the cover of PARACHUTIST. (Not that I've ever been on it).
So I sat down with my scanner and this massive pile of magazines and started
scanning them. Then wrote the HTML code to view them. I figured
it would take a couple hours to do this. Try 3 weeks (and at least
a case of wine).
Many issues still have the mailing labels on them. I tried removing
some of these but it left really ugly marks so I've left the mailing
labels on many of them.
I enjoy looking back at these old covers. It reminds me how much
skydiving has changed these past 30 years. Thank God that the age of chest
mounted reserves, motorcycle helmets, combat boots, and round canopies is
over! What hasn't changed is my passion for the sport. I've
jumped every year since 1975 except 1992 (when we didn't have a local DZ).
30 years and 2600 jumps later, I still can't wait for the weekend and
head for the DZ.
If you enjoy looking at these old cover photos, drop me an email and share
your thoughts.
Here's to 30 more years! I wonder what the sport will be like when
I'm 82?