WALDRON — At first, it might seem that Alice Chastain, member of First Baptist Church, Polo who serves on the Missouri Baptist Executive Board, is taking the “soaring with eagles” in Isa. 40:31 too literally. At the end of June, this grandmother and great-grandmother jumped from an airplane. She liked it so much, she did it again, two weeks later.
“I don’t know why but it is something I’ve always wanted to do,” Chastain said. “It was on my bucket list.”
Chastain has four sons, 13 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
“This all started with a surprise birthday gift for my son, Kurtis, from my daughter-in-law and the kids,” she said. “I didn’t want to say too much to ruin the surprise, but I kept saying, ‘I wish I was going.’”
“On the day of the surprise jump, the weather was bad,” Chastain said. “My son called to say that they had rescheduled and he wondered if I wanted to go too.”
Her son didn’t need to ask twice. “It was fantastic,” she said, “and it is really easy. The instructors do all the work. We jumped tandem sitting on the lap of the instructor and leaning back against his shoulder. They jump several times a day and they’ve done it for many years.”
According to Chastain, they left the plane at 15,000 feet and did a free-fall for 30 seconds traveling at 120 miles per hour before the parachute opened.
“Moving that fast in the free-fall,” she said, “makes your cheeks move back to your ears.”
“When the chute opened,” Chastain said, “it’s not a big deal, it is just cool. You pick your feet up and stand up or some slide in on their backside. They said, ‘The grass stains are free.’”
Most of Chastain’s family went to Falcon Skydiving at Noah’s Ark Airport in Waldron to watch or participate in the jump. One of Chastain’s sons lives in Washington and was not able to go.
“My 95-year-old father said he was ‘ready’ to jump and my grandkids just thought I was cool,” she said.
During the following week, another friend thought the jump sounded great, so Chastain went again.
“It was even better the second time,” she said. “This time I knew what was going on.”
“It is a wonderful way to get a view of God’s world,” Chastain said.
