I got to see a very good friend of mine a few months ago from my hometown; someone I grew up with. He got really into Skydiving when we were in University. He k

I got to see a very good friend of mine a few months ago from my hometown; someone I grew up with. He got really into Skydiving when we were in University. He kept trying to get me to jump. Guy spent a lot of time and money in the summer doing jumps and getting his various certificates. He got to the point where he was qualified to pack his own chute. He had one bad landing and shattered his leg. Apparently paramedics have no sympathy for people who injury themselves jumping out of a plane. He did jump for a few years after recovering from that. His roommate screwed up a landing and punctured his lung when he slammed into a stop sign (ironic, right?). My friend stopped jumping. He has two kids now, and he said that was part of it. He was worried a bit about getting pulled into that culture for the rest of his life, but he knew older sky divers who didn't party all the time and do insane amounts of cocaine (I hung out with some of his sky diving buddies and dear god, do they love their cocaine). But he had a few other friends die in jumps, and he started contemplating who he was and why he dived. He's now a band director at a community college. Now that he has his own program, his kids, his wife, he just realized it wasn't for him any more.