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Well, almost 50 years. My
kids tell me that if I haven't grown up by the time
I turn 50, I don't have to, and I have no intention
of doing so!
Chasing Squirrels with Shiny
Rocks and a Slingshot is a chronological,
autobiographical book that starts when I am about 2
years old to today, darn close to 50. So far
it runs about 100 single spaced, small print pages and
continues to grow. The Cube Forum will contain
more details and more stories as I expand on the
book. This has been a very eye opening experience
and I do hope you can learn how to overcome
some of life's hurdles to become
your own personal champion.
The trials and tribulations
I've suffered and especially the ones I suffered on others are pretty
well described in this book. Loves made, loves
lost, severe injuries, murder, wicked distractions,
repetitive errors, parenthood, personal
demolition, perseverance and many other fun and some not
so fun adventures. I suspect many ADD/ADHD
folks and the support team will be able to relate
of some of these true stories. The book is setup in an
easy to read format with each "event" being
further discussed in the Cube Forum with more
detail, hopefully to your benefit.
Perhaps, people can learn from my mistakes and
through community discussions, offer a more suitable solution
for a better potential outcome.
Don't get me wrong, this is not
all a gloom and doom sort of book, it is a series of
adventures that still often leave me in a cold
excited sweat. Albeit, each with a lesson.
(you notice that I didn't put
"lessons learned"... I still haven't figured
out some of them"
The writing is not great, but
the stories are real. Here is a little snippet
of a small adventure I took with my young boys when
I was about 32 years old. There are quite a
few such misadventures like this inscribed within,
this one didn't end all that well. Keep in
mind that I am now a successful quasi-retired
businessman, an inventor, a father, still alive and
now pretty much at peace with the world. But it sure wasn't an easy trip!
"Skydiving
A couple of days later we found ourselves camping at
Sandy Lake on the west side of Lake Winnipeg as we
slowly made our way back home to Thompson. On our
second day at Sandy Lake, I saw a sign that read
“Skydiving Lessons, every weekend” with directions
to a parachute club in Gimli, just 10 miles north of
our quite little campsite. Within minutes, I had phoned
and signed up for the class and subsequent jumps for
the next day. The course entailed a 4 hour
classroom session and jumps in the afternoon. They
had folks there that could look after my boys while
I was in class and when I was in the air, so
everything was a go! After a restless sleep, we
arrived at the club the next day about an hour early
to check the place out and look around. This gave
us plenty of time to check out the hanger, the jump
landing area and the fields around the skydiving
school. The hanger had a full length deserted jet
runway on the west side and a small fenced yard and light
industrial area on the east side. A pretty good
place for a skydiving school I thought. With the
boys being kept occupied by the school staff and
some other parents there, I started the 4 hour classroom session. We covered things like
aerodynamics and such, after which we covered a raft
of safety points. During this four hour session, I
went down and checked on the boys every hour and
although they were fine, I needed a break anyway as
my mind would start wonder. The boys had plenty of
experience being in these types of social
situations and were pros at keeping themselves
occupied most of the time. And this place was kid
heaven, with mockup planes they could investigate to
scooting around on wheeled practice sliders. Each
time I went down to check on them, they just said
“Yea Dad, we’re good” and they went back to playing.
After the classroom session was finally over, I had
picked up on the important points, like the
emergency chute, when to flare the chute and how to
land. No Problem! After we ate our lunch, I was
nominated to be on the first round of students to
jump. The boys watched as I was the last one packed
into the small plane. This meant I was the first of
the students to jump and after a quick and nervous
inquiry as to why, I was told that I was first
because I was the tallest and the biggest. Oh Joy…
Reviewing everything we learned in class over again in my head, I felt pretty much ready to go. I waved
to the boys as we took off into the clear blue
afternoon sky and ascended to 4500 feet, jump
height.
The then pilot yelled “READY” and punched a big
button beside the door. The side door of the small
plane swung open. This is the door that I was
jammed up against with my shoulder scrunched up
against the window. All of a sudden, I am half way
out of the plane as this side door flipped up and
locked open in place. I don’t want to jump anymore
and I want to get back on the ground, kiss my kids
and go home! I half heartedly argue with the jump
master, but after some convincing I start getting
out of the plane while he holds my release chute. I
slide one foot out on this tiny little foot pad on
the side of the plane, I slid my hand up across the
wing strut, place my other foot on the tiny little
foot pad while letting my other foot fly free. I am
the oldest in the class by at least 10 years, my
kids are on the ground watching me and I am
attempting to jump out of a perfectly good plane.
Am I freakin’ nuts?? So there I am, holding onto
the wing strut with both my hands, arms outstretched
and both feet now flying in the air, I feel like a
walrus hanging on the side of a plane and I feel
equally out of place, but I am ready to jump,
supposedly. The pilot has already swung the small
plane around for the second time to get into the
best jump position for me to land in the designated
landing area. They are extra careful as they had a
jumper die the previous year when his chute got
tangled and they were still reeling from that
incident. I am hanging on the wing of a plane and
this is what I remember!
We are right over the release zone and the
instructor says, O.K, Let Go Mr. Gregoire, nothing
happens except the wind blowing and the sound of the
engine as we fly a bit further. The instructor says
more urgently, LET GO Mr. Gregoire, and again
nothing happens. I want to climb back in, but the
instructors said that once I am out, I can’t come
back in. I am sure that if I start crying like a
little girl, he’ll let me back in, but I man up and
just as I let go, I sort of hear him saying “hold
on, we…..”.
I am airborne and freefalling. It is
an incredible sensation of total weightlessness and
a complete battery of the senses. Within seconds my
main chute opens and I am jerked upwards as the
straps cinch up my thighs and butt, I go swinging to
the left and remember to check my chute. I check
and make sure the lines are good, they are. I check
to make sure the chute is fully open, it is. I
check to make sure my shorts are dry, they are. Now
I am floating at the speed of a parachute controlled
descent and have absolutely no sensation of
falling. There is no wind as I have become the
wind. I have nothing I can gauge my airborne height
other than it is way the heck up in the sky. The
little speaker squawks to life from my receiver
attached to my jump suit..."
"life is filled
with
diversions, it is up to you to choose which path to
follow"
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