When I was a skydiving instructor, people would often ask me how much the first jump would cost. I would tell them that the experience would cost about $250, "plus half of everything you make the rest of your life". That answer was rarely understood. Skydiving is more...
Personal
An obsession
Father’s Day Tribute
My father, John Badnarik, was born on June 19th, 1928, just before the start of the Great Depression. He had a difficult childhood, and when he graduated from high school, he joined the Army to serve our country at the beginning of the Korean Conflict. Luckily for my...
O Captain! My Captain!
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still; My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will; ("O Captain! My Captain!" is an extended metaphor poem written in 1865 by Walt Whitman, about the death of American president Abraham Lincoln.) The man...
End of a
Perfect Mission
Alan is my best friend. We met in college while noticing the same very short skirt. He is 364 days younger than I am, so his birthday falls one day ahead of mine on the calendar. Naturally we would celebrate both birthdays the same weekend, back when birthdays meant...
Knot right now, thanks!
Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment. A friend of mine is a sheriff that I met at a convention of sheriffs in Las Vegas. I sat next to him at the banquet and learned that he was also a Scoutmaster in his free time. He said, "I'm not...
Codes and Secret Writing
I told this story to a fighter pilot friend of mine, and he insisted I share it with my newsletter list. [Just to be clear, my friend hasn't landed on the deck of an aircraft carrier in years, however "once a fighter pilot, always a fighter pilot". Similarly, I...
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