Elliot Higgins

Hi, everybody.

My name's Elliot, and this story is a celebration of my 45th year of anniversary of jumping out of an airplane in order to get into dental school.

Now, let's go back to 1975, and I am a pre-med hippie at University of Oregon, and I'm a junior spring term.

And I desperately need another hour of A to pad my GPA.

Now a spring, or a pre-med hippie has, I had huge hair, I had a bitchin' hippie bead necklace, and super cool bell-bottom corduroys, and a let's party attitude.

So I was desperate for this A, and all of the easy courses like bowling 101 were taken.

So what am I supposed to do?

And so out of the blue, a miracle manifests itself by U of O's first ever offered skydiving 101 for college students.

And so what's to think about?

I sign up immediately.

What's the big deal, man?

You get a parachute.

So our jump master was, he looked like Gimbley from Lord of the Rings.

He was a burly fella, about five foot one, bushy hair, bushy beard, beady eyes, and he did not like, he was a serious man, and he did not like hippies, and we called him the leaping leprechaun.

So,

Our class met every Tuesday and Thursday night, and we'd meet at the wrestling gym and jump off of bleachers and practice our landing on the mats.

So I'd go pretty high and just have a frickin' blast, and, you know, I'd pull off some really nice landings, tuck and roll, and come up pumping my hand and go, Airborne all the way, sir!

And I would salute the leprechaun and then go...

Head back in the back of the line, and I thought I was hilarious.

So Wednesday afternoons, we met in the same gym, and we practiced folding our parachutes.