Just 3 years ago a man was arrested for trying to jump off the Empire State Building in New York City. His case was dismissed by a judge who decided that
Jeb Corliss had safely made over 3,000 jumps including the Eiffel Tower, and therefore was considered a ‘sport jumper’.
“It’s ok Doug, we need to find a way out of here in case the house catches on fire” I said as I tried to convince my brother and little sister to jump out of our 2-story home just a block from Jay’s Tavern in Boring Oregon, on a beautiful sunny day in June 1949.
Like most kids in those days, I had an overactive imagination. We had read adventures like Tom Sawyer, Lassie, and numerous adventures.
In those days, we kids in the neighborhood were not all quite as wild, but almost! We caught crawdads in a near-by creek. We later slapped small trout out of the water, like the bears we saw in wild adventure shorts at the movie theatre. We rode our bikes on rutty logging roads, we had rock fights and the little boys of the day all seemed to go through periods where nailing a target with a big ball of spit was a big deal. It was an adventure every day. After all we didn’t have TV.
The idea came when for some unknown reason I became worried that if a fire started in the upstairs bedrooms where we slept we would be burned up.
There was no rope ladder, or any device to aid our escape. I took the initiative and decided to develop a plan. It was a dumb plan, but it was better than no plan or so I thought.
So after numerous cajoling urgings I convinced my little brother to jump out of the second story window of our three bedroom home to get experience if we ever had to do so in a fire situation. Finally I convinced him to do it by jumping first!
I jumped out the window and uttered the then famous yell which then was used by smoke jumpers and parachute jumpers of the day, “Geronimo” I uttered. This all happened while our little sister watched in quiet horror. She was timid and not inclined to jumping out of windows, roofs or even bed! She was a smart little kid.
Our white two-story had green shutters and was directly in line with the green chain at Valberg’s Mill which was about 150 yards from our house. They had slag burning in the lots next to us, and so fire was a constant factor in the neighborhood. In those days the air quality was varied and sparks did fly around the neighborhood at times. This may have been the reason for my concern.
We were also educated early on to “think for your self” as my dad would say.
So that may have been the motivation to jump! It was a crazy idea but I didn’t think it through to realize we could have had broken necks, bones etc.
So we jumped! I felt the crushing effect in my entire body as I hit the pillow.
I jumped 3 times, and as dumb as it was I could only get Doug to jump twice.
I remember thinking I had enough after the 3rd jump, and declared it a finish on the Fire Drill!
Thank God little sister made the right chice. She was the smart one and just looked on with a worried look! Those were the days! We went on and enjoyed other adventures, and somehow we lived through it though to this day I sometimes wonder!
Frank Ryan –March 2003 #
Frank Ryan
503-408-8402 – fx 503-408-9006
NW Senior & Boomer News
ffmlryan@yahoo.com
http://www.franksseniornews.com/
