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Larry Gossler Z-Hills, Deland, Georgia

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I received this on Facebook yesterday.

“Hi Steve,
My name is Paul Jackson D12860, and I just wondered if you knew that Larry Gossler had passed away. He had a heart attack up in Dubach, Louisiana more than two years ago. His wife wasn't involved in Skydiving and didn't know many of Larry's old friends”.
Paul
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So I wrote back to Paul Jackson that I felt like I’d been kicked in the gut and he wrote back:

“Steve, I know how you feel. I met Larry in the Philippines back in '87 or so while I was working at the Clark Air Force Base Parachute Club. He came in asking about skydiving courses and said he had jumped before. I told him to produce a log book. The next day he brought in a box full of them but he hadn't jumped a square yet. Well it didn't take long before he was flying high and teaching me a thing or two. We went to Thailand for a two week meet and Larry broke an ankle, so he gave me his rig and sat the rest out till he caught a ride back to the Philippines.
I came back to the States in 2001 and he caught up with me in Arkansas a few years later and we had a lot of good times. He reminisced a lot about you and his other team mates from the day and of course his first SCR.
Losing a friend is never easy but the circumstances of his demise do sort of take off the edge. He died, during a party, on the shitter, of a massive heart attack. I can imagine that he is still chuckling about it as I still do”.
I Jumped with the guys who invented Skydiving.

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Getting to the age where truly memorable people are dying of natural causes rather than hitting the ground is cause to ponder those halcyon days. I swapped a few emails with Larry some years ago, but the last time I spoke to him was in the early '80s, when he and Mary Donnan, both of 'em knee-crawling drunk, called me at about 2a.m. from Salt Lake City. They thought it was hilarious when I told them - rather grumpily - what time it was.

There's something rather poignant about how easily forgotten are those who made a real contribution to the sport.
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Larry Gossler was the person responsible for introducing me to Skydiving. He was a member of the Ten High Bunch when I first met him at a job site in Tampa. We both worked in the Telecom industry installing new equipment. Larry took me to lunch one day in his Van (VW In think) and all of his skydiving gear was in the back. I remember asking "what's all that stuff?".

I met him at Z-Hills that weekend and watched the Ten High Bunch make practice jumps. I was hooked.. But I was only seventeen and had to get Mom and Dad to sign a waiver.

Larry kept a watchful eye on me while jumping and on the job. I will always be grateful to Larry for being the kind person he was to me and many other fellow jumpers and telecom workers..
Mike Branch
NSCSA #7
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Larry was a good friend and he will be missed. He stopped by some years ago, after his travels in the Pacific, to say he was setteling down.

I am posting the photo of the "10 High Bunch" after a Turkey meet.
That's Larry in the lower right:
[inline Ten_High_Bunch_small.jpg ]
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Very sorry to hear the news. I hadn't seen Larry since 1976. We're getting to the age where these kinds of announcements come too frequently.
DZGone.com
B-4600, C-3615, D-1814, Gold Wings #326, Diamond Wings #152.

If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!
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You've got to love the Frenchies in that picture. I jumped with Larry in Valley Mills, TX in the summer of 1972. He and I lived on the DZ in our VW vans for a few months. Larry had the pop-up camper VW and mine was just a plain van with the center seat removed. He had just completed his night 8-man in Z-Hills before he got to V-Mills. He came to V-Mills because we had a DC-3 and a twin Beech and were making what were big attempts in those days. We never made a night jump together but we did lots of great RW that summer. He was a cool guy and I'm sorry to hear he is gone.
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