ORANGE — It is Peter Daniell’s 77th birthday and he gazes upward at a wispy, watercolor Monday sky with nary a trace of wind. When his son Jonah and grandson Ray Starpoli cooked up the idea to celebrate the occasion by skydiving, Peter could not come up with a single reason why that wouldn’t work. Not even his health, which has been tested in recent years, could dampen his zeal.
“Yeah, colon cancer, surgically cured, prostate cancer, surgically cured, bladder cancer, surgically cured,” he says, mentioning the neuroendocrine cancer bedeviling him presently. His wife, he says, Amherst attorney Jenny Daniell, “has guided me through it all. She’s really on top of it.”
“He’s been through some tough times,” says Jenny, “and part of today is sort of capturing joy when we can, and continued courage through this hard time.”
The patriarch has been practicing his “Geronimo!” for that moment of truth when one dives from an open plane, but the night before last he dreamed he was freefalling through eight miles of clouds and woke up at 3 a.m. wondering: “Why the hell am I doing this?”
Skydiving has never been on his bucket list, more so on Jonah’s and Ray’s. But the Three Musketeers aspect of doing it with son and grandson stirred his heart. The family has arrived at a busy little airport in Orange called Jumptown.
The fellas knew better than to offer the adventure to Jenny, who says, “I prefer the ground. They’re much more courageous than I.”
Nor to daughter Emily Daniell, Ray’s mom, who figured, “This was kind of a guy thing from the get go, but I’m waiting for the report before I’ll consider doing it.”
Neither Jonah, 30, who teaches music in Manhattan, nor Ray, 25, a software engineer out of South Boston, think of themselves as thrill seekers, though Jonah did rappel down an Ecuadorian waterfall, with pranksters informing him that his sister Molly had perished moments before. “We had a couple of real comedians on that trip,” he shakes his head.
And Ray once finagled a ride on a submarine.
“Run Silent, Run Deep,” says his grandfather, our first Burt Lancaster reference of the morning.
Ray has also tested his survival skills, dropped by himself in the wilderness for a few days, which he shrugs off much the same as he does the endeavor at hand. “I’m ready,” he says.
The uncle and the nephew, raised practically as brothers, have been featured in this paper once before, front page, in a bus on their way to school in Leverett, one in sixth grade, the other in kindergarten. The duo, not to mention the patriarch, expect nothing less than a shot of adrenaline from this three-generational jump at hand.
The three, along with Jenny and Emily, are invited inside by Jumptown’s Amy Herrmann, who does just about everything at the place, from instructing to piloting to “jumping when I get the chance.” Height and weight are important factors when matching up novices with the instructors they’ll be attached to for the tandem dive. There’s probably no one here as tall as Jonah Daniell, who gets asked a lot about his nonexistent basketball career.
Says his dad: “He saved his second-grade basketball team from…”
“Winning?” says Jonah.
“I was searching for the right word,” says his dad.
The perfect parachute
Next, the trio and entourage must watch a safety video, which has the young host describing the sport as a “leap of faith,” reminding the rookies that: “There’s no perfect pilot, no perfect airplane, no perfect parachute… and you have the risk of serious injury or death,” prompting Peter to mock-cry: “I’m outa here!”
Daughter Emily admits being nervous since May when the plan was hatched, but when she brought up Jumptown’s website and learned about backup parachutes and how at a certain altitude the thing’ll just automatically open, she felt better.
The video urges one to stay calm in the unlikely event of an emergency, to keep arching your back during freefall and have your feet up coming in for a landing to assure a smooth butt-skidding arrival.
“Can you do that?” Jenny asks her husband, who has knee surgery scheduled for next month. He gives her the piece-of-cake shrug.
Peter, from New Jersey, and Jenny, from Michigan, met in Boston in the 1980s during Hurricane Gloria. While preparing for a trial, her power went out, so she rushed across the street and pounded on a door, which happened to be his. “I said, ‘Come on in, sweetheart,’” Peter suavely remembers. So did she get any work done? “Not too much,” he further recalls.
All told they have four adult kids and five grandchildren. Son Adam is set to arrive in time to see the jump, daughter Molly will be here for the birthday lunch afterward — providing death or serious injury casts not its pall.
The couple’s fondest ways to spend a date?
“Well, the kids are here,” Peter shushes.
“We like to hike a lot,” says Jenny, “but whenever we’re together it’s joyful.”
Documenting adrenaline
The family heads for the hangar to meet the instructors they’ll be attached to — Chris Belli, Paul Vincent and Mark Wilson — and to be fitted with jumpsuits and harnesses. “In a few minutes we’re gonna hop in that airplane and hop off,” says Wilson, as the first-time jumpers are physically put through the proper positions for that literal leap of faith and the ensuing feet-up landing, lest you break your leg.
There are also a handful of experienced skydivers making the flight, including the exuberant Ty Rogers, who’s “jumping for fun with a couple of friends” but who also coaches at Jumptown. “Once you do eight jumps with an instructor, you do 17 jumps with a coach and get your license. I love it, one of my favorite things ever!” he cries.
Recording the family’s escapade is paramount and the company offers a few versions, wrist-mounted cams and such, as Ray is coached by his tandem partner Wilson: “When you’re in freefall, I’m gonna be behind you, you have to look at the camera and smile, you should not be looking at the ground, OK? Give a thumbs-up, look at the whole world, back over at the camera, scream, smile, cry, whatever, but try not to stare at the ground.”
Jonah and his dad admit to some butterflies, with Peter saying how he avoided coffee this morning.
So as not to pee?
“Or worse,” he says.
But grandson Ray’s so nonchalant he’s actually yawning. “I’m ready,” he repeats.
Talking to the official videographer’s camera, Peter says, “We’re thrilled to be here but mostly we’re celebrating our family.”
With the steady gait of astronauts, the trio proceeds to the plane, a 1993 Cessna 208 Caravan, and with the roar of its engine, the mission is afoot.
There are other birthday people here, waiting for the next flight, including Lenny, 63, of Southbridge and niece Angela of Worcester. He’s jumped before, in Maine. “I was so caught up in what the jumpmasters were telling me that I didn’t really get a chance to look around. This time I just want to go for the ride, which is why I chose tandem.” What should his niece expect? “I expect her to fall with style,” he says.
Twenty minutes later, the plane is spotted, and those in the crowd with the keenest eyesight can make out bodies hurtling downward from 14,000 feet, a family seen only as faraway specks. Then the chutes burst open like time-lapse moonflowers, and the graceful sweep to Mother Earth begins.
Ty Rogers comes whooping and swooping into a three-step landing, thrusting his fist like a kid coming off his first rollercoaster, and he gathers up his parachute and heads in.
Moments later, it’s Jonah and Ray, legs up in flawless butt skids, both standing up grinning. The patriarch, meanwhile, seems to be coming in hot, but a few skillfully rendered tugs by Belli, and the grandfather slides in safe at home.
“Victory!” he declares. “Amazing! And my knees are still good!” You can hear the cheers of his family in the distance. “The highest I’ve been since Woodstock,” he quips.
Would he do it again?
“We’ll reserve judgement on that,” he grins. “Freefall? That was not that much fun — it’s so intense. But once we started canopying, my god, you can see all the way to New Hampshire.”
And into the arms of his wife and daughter he falls. “That was exciting even from the ground,” says Emily.
“I didn’t want to convey my nervousness,” says Jenny, “but now I can really relax.”
Says son Jonah, “Initially, I went headfirst, did a somersault maybe, little disorienting. But I remembered to arch my back and then we were falling in a way that felt more normal, I guess. The thing that really struck me was the noise during freefall—it’s so loud, omigod!”
“Deafening,” adds Peter. “I could feel it making my face go funny.”
“I was fully prepared to curse the whole way down,” says Jonah, “but I was somewhere between a state of shock and serenity.”
“I enjoyed the whole thing,” says Ray, cool as the other side of the pillow.
Adam Daniell, who got there in time to see the jump, was almost at a loss for words over what he’d witnessed. “I’m so proud of them,” he says. “It was pretty … pretty …”
“Ballsy?” asks the patriarch, ever searching for just the right word.
