When we speak of “lifetime” sports, those that you can still do with creaking body parts, doesn’t kayaking spring to mind, or snowshoeing, cornhole, playing catch with the dog or bocce? Jumping out of an open airplane at 14,000 feet, with facial muscles flapping like flags on a speeding pickup, would not seem a natural fit for those of a certain age.
Meet Kate Hersey, 79, of Shutesbury, a retired schoolteacher who thinks skydiving is the greatest thrill ever. About this time last year she made her first jump, from right here at Jumptown in Orange.
“My husband I were going by on a motorcycle and we saw them coming down,” she said. “I decided I wanted to jump before I turned 80.”
“Well, you’d better do it now,” said her husband, John. “You might not live that long.”
Buoyed with such encouragement, she up and did it, along with daughter Sarah Winston, 53, of South Deerfield, a seasoned rollercoaster fanatic in her own right, used to that bottom-dropping-out sensation. Not that freefall isn’t a rollercoaster’s top drop times 90, but you get the idea.
“We just rolled out with the guy we’re attached to, and once you’re out, you’re out!” said Sarah.
“Well, I did say my rosary,” said her mom.
Both women loved the experience so much, they couldn’t wait for this past weekend to do it again, this time with Hersey’s granddaughter Claire Winston, 23, of Easthampton, completing the three-gen trifecta, none of them anxious in the least.
Not even during the mandatory safety video, where the possibility of DEATH OR SERIOUS INJURY is mentioned at every turn. Skydiving, in essence, has two distinct parts: freefall and canopy. Basically, one minute of certain death-death-death-death and seven glorious minutes of heaven.
Kate Hersey always had an interest in parachuting but held back during her child-rearing years so as not to leave her children orphaned.
The trio, like all novice skydivers, were be harnessed to an instructor for the jump — Mark Wilson, Chris Belli and Devon Ostrowski respectively.
On the sidelines
The family menfolk, by the way, are the cheerleaders here. Sarah’s husband, Jared, said simply, “Nope, I’m good,” when the jumping thing came up. “I’m scared of heights. I don’t like rollercoasters. Not fond of nausea. Funny, I don’t get seasick or carsick, I just don’t like anything higher than 20 feet. I can climb up and put a window in but I have a threshold when it comes to heights.”
Also in the “Nope, I’m good” wing of the family is Claire’s younger sister Melaina, who respects the force of gravity to the point of avoiding any rides offered at Six Flags New England, including merry-go-rounds, according to her mom.
John Hersey, retired Shutesbury police chief, simply prefers to feel the ground beneath him. What he really likes to feel is the road under his Harley’s wheels, a sport the couple does together. “We go all over the place,” he said. “New Hampshire, the Kancamagus; we went to Nova Scotia for three weeks, had the time of our lives, just cruising around.”
Does she cling to her husband’s back like a Hell’s Angel’s wildcat? “I used to,” said Kate. “Now I have a side-car. I’m very comfortable; I sit there and read my book.”
“It has double suspension,” said John. “She rides better than me!”
Kate Hersey grew up in Amherst, worked at her family’s pharmacy, the former College Drugstore. She met her future husband at Keene State and taught at Amherst and Pelham schools. “There were three choices for women back then: nursing, teaching or secretary.”
Granddaughter Claire, meanwhile, is pursuing a graduate degree at UMass in augmentative and alternate communication development, while working in her mother’s special-ed classroom at Frontier Regional High School as an instructional assistant, often interacting with the very teens she seeks to help.
“I’ll be making devices for students and adults who can’t communicate on their own,” she said. “I’ve already delved into it, working with students who use the technology.”
She immediately became annoyed at the unreliability of some of those instruments. “These suck — this needs to be fixed. If it’s frustrating for me, imagine what’s it like for people who can’t express their frustration. Imagine not being able to voice your opinion, physically, in a roomful of your peers and friends.”
“Anyway, I love working with my mother and I love that population,” Claire Winston said.
Moments later comes the word to get fitted for jumpsuits and harnesses. Claire expects to be nervous when the moment of truth arrives and the wind is at her face. “They say you can back out, literally, at the last second. But I don’t expect to be that nervous,” she said with a laugh.
“Once you meet who you jump with, it all seems so safe,” said her grandmother. “Driving on the highway might be more dangerous — we passed a motorcycle accident on the way here.”
Stepping into freefall
Led by Kate, Sarah and Claire, the jumpers climb into the plane, including a large group of excited soloists, some of whom just that morning got licensed to jump without an instructor. Energy is in the house.
Though tandem skydivers are generally instructed to come in for a landing with a feet-up butt-skid, Sarah has been striving for a standing-up landing, like soloists do. “I didn’t do it right last time,” she said, “but I think I know what I did wrong.”
As the airplane carrying half his family roared into blue October skies, John Hersey, between pacing, spoke of his law enforcement days. “There’s more going on in a small town than you think. There’s a bar up there … oh yeah. I was on patrol by Lake Wyola, found a woman sleeping in a car, middle of nowhere, bike in the backseat. I knocked on the window: ‘What are you doing?’ Sleeping, she says. I said, ‘Not here. You’ve got some of the worst in the county right up that hill and they’ll be coming this way … follow me.’ I let her sleep in my motorhome. I woke up my wife: ‘There’s a strange woman in the camper. WHAT?! I’ll tell you about it in the morning.’ She turned out to be a nurse, had breakfast with my wife and left.”
He squints at the falling bodies, tiny specks really, and seems to hold his breath.
Even from way down here you can hear chutes open, the ones belonging to John’s wife, daughter and granddaughter among them. The solo jumpers come down in a chattering pack as they land one by one, and a grinning Sarah Winston lands on her feet, too, as graceful as stepping off a curb.
Matriarch Kate comes in right behind her, confident, flawless, feet in the air, butt-skidding and fist-thrusting to safety. Granddaughter Claire seems to land awkwardly, but unhurt.
“Perfect!” she cries. “I would definitely want to do this every day. I saw one of my old friend’s houses!”
What happened with the landing? “I couldn’t get my other leg up — I’m just not that flexible!” she said.
“I’d recommend this to anyone who’s cool with heights, but anyone who’s afraid of heights also should think about it,” she said, looking her dad’s way.
Said Jared Winston: “I wonder if I didn’t stare at the ground and just jumped out and stared out into the blue, I think I’d be fine. When I’m on a roof I can see the ground. Sometimes my brain plays tricks on me.”
As for his younger daughter: “Nope, I’m good,” said Melaina.
The matriarch, meanwhile, is talking about jumping over Cape Cod some day. “I heard about a woman in the news who made a jump at 102. So that gives me hope that I’ll be able to do this for a long time,” said Kate Hersey, “just not every weekend.”
