As you might recall, I'm guilty of this...

I did scuba... once, untrained... with some friends who had BUT... barely. They got their certificates, went for their first dive.. and I joined. Amazingly dumb... and to your complete shock, I'm sure, I have to admit it's not the only 'dumb' thing I've done in life.

Forgive my switching up, topics.. or rather, expanding... a lot of the things I've done in life I was 'nervous' about... even flying a plane. Jumping out of a plane. And I think we're all different but the one thing that got to me the most was bungy jumping.

My first bungy jump was in Las Vegas... I think just outside the casino Circus Circus, (could be wrong about that). If memory serves.. it was 150'. It was a stand alone structure, (not connected to a hotel or casino).... and maybe it's still there, I'm not sure.

The structure had, obviously, it's own elevator. My son and I took our first jumps together. We sat in a very short class in which the instructor took us thru the basics... not much to know, actually... mostly how and why to maintain 'position' so you don't get whacked with the bungy cord.

I'm going to separate the jump into three very distinct steps. The trip up. The walk to the edge. The jump. You would think the 'jump' would be where I became the most anxious... it wasn't, it was the trip up... and I'm talking A LOT more anxiety producing. To this day I can remember going up in the elevator and passing the roof of the casino and thinking, "What in the HELL am i doing".

I can remember that trip up, in the elevator, like it was yesterday.. and I can remember it more vividly than the walk to the edge or the jump. I can't explain that.

Next most anxious moment was the walk to the edge... but for me no where near as bad as the trip up. Some anxiety when I turned around on the edge to jump backwards... (you could choose which way to exit and they said going backwards would produce the most 'rebound' so I chose that way).

The fall I remember mostly for watching the lights in the rooms of a nearby hotel flash by on my way down, (it was a night jump). The tightening of the cord was so gradual I didn't really feel it... next thing I knew I was headed back up and seemingly faster than I had gone down.

And... all anxiety was gone. The best part, (most fun), of the jump, for me... was NOT going down, it was going back up. On the second rebound, in fact, I started doing flips.

But then there came another anxiety producing moment. After I had stopped bouncing... they lower a hook to you so you can latch on and they then winch you back up to the top. Hanging in the air, attaching the hook, I again felt a little anxiety... but not a lot... the 'thrill' was more powerful.

And then.. THEN, came the most anxious moment of all. My son was next. He didn't feel any anxiety at all... leaping off, laughing like a madman, and turning and flipping and having the time of his life from the ride up to the ride back down.

So anyway... not sure why I added all that... just reminiscing I guess. - JamesJM