Nostalgia: wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable
condition.
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Dress
for success
Why would anyone want to bother wearing a suit and black polished leather shoes while BASE jumping? That’s exactly
what our German friends wondered when we made our first jump from Kochertalbrucke in Germany. On the picture you can see
one of the Germans staring at Scott Elder while he fiddles around with his leg strap. They thought we were totally nuts (which
they might be right about).
My dream had always been to BASE jump wearing an Armani or Hugo Boss suit but unfortunately I didn’t have the
money to purchase such exquisite clothing. I had to settle for a blue light wool suit, a white 100% Egyptian cotton shirt
and an Yves Saint-Laurent red and blue silk tie. My shoes were black Italian
leather shoes with a …. leather sole. The leather sole business was not
very smart because when you are running on a tin roof of a building it kind of tends to be slippery. There were three reasons
we dressed like this:
- Three guys wearing suits and ties are
not likely to be arrested, either before or after the jump. “Jump? Me? From that building? No, he ran in that direction!”
- When you mix extreme sports & good
style it is usually irresistible for beautiful women. You jump off a building in down town Paris, pack the chute in the trunk
of the car and then go directly to the Brasserie La Coupole on Boulevard Montparnasse to sip some champagne. No t-shirts or
sloppy clothing here man.
- BASE jumping nicely dressed impacted
in a very positive way on us, the media and our families. “These guys are doing crazy stuff but look how they dress.
The must be thoughtful and law abiding citizens.”
On the picture you can see me wearing an altimeter. I thought it was funny to jump from an object when the needle was
almost positioned on zero. (600ft)
Now, does this
mean that I believe there should be a dress code for BASE jumping? No, absolutely not, but sometimes a bit of class and style
is not bad. Of course we didn’t deal with knee caps, helmets and body armor which would have totally destroyed our dandy
image.
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Arrive in style
We always believed
that stylish transportation was very important. So how does this piece of French rust fit with our stylish dress code?, you
might wonder. On the picture you can see Bernard’s 1979 Renault 4 L. It is a beautiful car with all the features needed
for a successful BASE jumping expedition; A big trunk, 4 wheels, an FM radio, space for 3 people, 100 bottles of beer and
3 rigs. This vehicle was our command center while we traveled around Europe in search for jumpable objects. On the top of the car you can see our BASE BEER
box which was replenished regularly. This Renault 4 unfortunately passed away in 1989.
