Time Honored Tradition

There’s a tradition that strikes terror in the hearts of all skydivers. It’s a ritual that happens after your 500^th jump. When you least expect it you’re pinned to the ground, your pants are pulled down and the number 50 is painted on the ass cheeks. The idea is your butt hole is the other zero. Believe me; everyone tries to sneak past this jump without advertising it.

A friend of mine named John surprised everyone with a sign painted on his ass that read “Exit Only, Do Not Enter”.

I figured it was inevitable so I embraced it. The morning before I would make the jump, my girlfriend Lora painted and elaborate Yin and Yang symbol across my butt cheeks. There were sparks around it and a lightning bolt going through it. I wish I had a photo.

I jumped all day with my team Muffy and the Divers.

After my 500^th jump I braced myself for the attack but nothing happened. After a while I thought I was lucky and skated past it.

That night we sat around the bonfire getting drunk. We were doing our best to one-up each other’s skydiving war stories. I had totally forgotten about my butt.

Around midnight I looked up from the fire to see a group coming at me. I tried my best to get away but they tackled me. As they held me down someone pulled my pants down.

They all recoiled in horror when they saw my ass. The sweat of the day melted the painting into a swirling black, blue and green blur. It looked like someone had whacked my ass with a 2x4.

Plenty of photos were taken and a few of them were stapled to the wall of the Venice Cafe. I was tending bar there at the time. After a few weeks they were taken down. I like to think someone found them erotic but I’m afraid the truth is they were just too damn disgusting.

I wasn’t able to find any of the photos. The five way pic is my 300^th. I’m lower left and coming into the back of a formation to close what’s called a Zipper.One of these hung above the cash register for years at the Broadway Oyster Bar. There’s a pic of me landing somewhere in Tennessee and Lora and me at a rest stop on our way to some drop zone somewhere in another state. This was in the early 90s. I apologize for stacking the photos like this but it’s the only they work in all browsers.