Blue Skies to Rik Hustler

[rgoetsch 0]

I'm sad to say that long time New England- New York jumper Rik Hustler passed away yesterday -very unexpectedly- of natural causes.


If you are interested in details of the service- this was sent out by the manager of Jumptown- Orange, MA

Services for Rik Hustler will be Wednesday, April 20th. Calling hours will be held at Mahar Funeral Home on Main Street in Bennington, Vermont from 1:00-2:30 with a short service immediately following at 2:30.

A gathering after will take place at the "Talk of the Town" restaurant and pub also on Main Street in Bennington. Please do not bring any food. Everything is taken care of.

I do not have the street numbers but Hattie says neither place is hard to find.

Depending on the weather and how the week goes for Hattie we will be doing an ash dive at Jumptown late Friday afternoon/ early evening (April 22nd) and having our own Memorial Service. I will send out details on that and when exactly it is going to happen as soon as possible.

If you can't make the service but would like to send a card Hattie's address is Hattie Hustler 33 Dudley Place Bennington, VT 05201

"If you're not on the centerline -you're out of control"

[rgoetsch 0]

BENNINGTON -- Richard L. “Rik” Hustler, 57, a resident of Dudley Place, Bennington, died suddenly Saturday, April 16, 2005, at Jump Town in Orange, Mass.

Rik died of natural causes following a day of skydiving in Orange.

Born in Hoosick Falls, N.Y. on April 8, 1948, he received his education in the Hoosick Falls schools.

Rik married the former Hattie Aldrich on April 11, 1975 at the First Baptist Church in Bennington.

In earlier years, Rik had been employed at various jobs in the Bennington area. At the time of his death, he was employed at K & K Car Wash.

An avid skydiver for the past 30 years, Rik had jumped in Orange, Addison and Duanesberg, N.Y. An avid outdoorsman, he enjoyed hunting, fishing and horse riding. He also drew sketches, painted and liked reading science fiction.

Survivors include his wife, Hattie Hustler of Bennington; a son, Darby Joe Hustler of Fort Myers, Fla.; a daughter, Wensdee Camp, her husband Brad and their daughter, Leia, all of Brunswick, Ga.; an aunt, Marjorie Varley; and a cousin, Nancy Meek, her husband John and their family, all of Greenwich, N.Y.; and several nieces, nephews and cousins. Rik was predeceased by his mother, Virginia (Hall) Hustler, and his grandmother, Mary Beadle, who helped raise him from an early age.

Memorial services celebrating the life of Rik Hustler will be held from the Mahar & Son Funeral Home in Bennington on Wednesday, April 20, at 2:30 p.m., with the Rev. Norma Drosky, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Bennington, officiating.

Friends are invited to pay their respects to the family at the funeral home on Wednesday from 1 p.m. until the time of the service.

Private committal services will take place at the family lot in Glebe View Cemetery, South Londonderry.

Contributions in Richard L. Hustler’s memory may be made to Jump Town, for the construction of a sky jumping center, through the office of the Mahar & Son Funeral Home, 628 Main St., Bennington, VT 05201.

Published in the Bennington Banner on 4/18/2005.
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"If you're not on the centerline -you're out of control"

[irishflying 0]

Blue Skies Rik...thanks for teaching me how to fly! xoxo

[KolinskyDC 0]

It was a very very sad day at Jumptown

The only comfort we have is knowing that he was surrounded by people who loved him as he left this earth after finishing what he loved to do.

Rik, we love you and you will be missed

Melissa

"May the best of your past be the worst of your future"

[ltdiver 3]

Another very nice article on Rik and his wife, Hattie.

Wish we all could live our lives as such and enjoy it clear until the end, having wonderful friends and memories along the way.

ltdiver

http://www.benningtonbanner.com/Stories/0,1413,104~8678~2873414,00.html

Quote

Longtime skydiver jumped one last time before his death

By JESSICA YORK
Staff Writer

BENNINGTON -- Within mere minutes of safely landing his 5,384th skydive jump, a local man died from a loosened blood clot that went to his lung.
His wife wants others to know he died of natural causes, and that he would want others to give the sport a try, too.

Hattie Hustler said her husband Richard "Rik" Hustler spent the last nearly 30 years of his life skydiving - almost as long as he was married to his wife.

The 57-year-old skydiving instructor "lived for his jumping," said Hattie Hustler, and he died in the same place that he had started skydiving over a quarter of a century before - at the Orange Municipal Airport with the Jumptown skydiving club in Orange, Mass. His death was on April 16, five days after his 30th anniversary with his wife, and eight days after his birthday.

He had undergone a surgery in November, said his wife, and the activity of the jump may have loosened the clot.

"At least it was quick and peaceful, and the 'Peter Pan' part of Rick never has to grow old," Hustler wrote in a published remembrance for her husband this week.

Although she herself was not present at the jump, Hustler can say anecdotally that her husband had a normal landing from a "fun jump," where he was not instructing, and that he had time to speak with some Boy Scouts who watched the jump, before later collapsing.

"He was very humorous," said Hustler in an interview Monday, close to tears. "I can just see him. He probably told them they should try the sport at least once."

"I bought him his first canopy," she continued. "I knew we were in trouble when ... I have this photo of him pointing up, with his motormouth running."

It was difficult giving permission to donate her husband's corneas and skin when he died, said Hustler, but she knew it was the right thing to do for a man who had regularly grown his hair out long to later cut off and donate to a wigs-for-kids program.

Hustler has skydived five times herself, the last time in the mid-90s. She said she is glad that she tried the sport out, because "it helped me to understand what he liked about it."

Darby Hustler, Rik Hustler's son from a previous marriage, took part in a tandem (attached to an instructor) dive on April 23 with 17 other divers to spread half of his father's ashes over the airfield where he spent so much time.

"I kept half for myself," said Hattie Hustler. "I share half of him with the sport."

What her husband liked about skydiving, she said, was the "freedom of the free fall, the adrenaline rush. And there's no phones."

"A sport family, it's kind of like a different life, " she explained. "It's hard to understand the people who like it - it's an addiction."

The Hustler's were both a part of the tight-knit skydiving family every summer for years, when they would relocate their mobile home near to the airfield. Even Easter dinner might be spent in the company of their skydiving family instead of their blood family, said Hustler.

Like any family, sitting around a campfire and telling stories about their adventures was common, said Hustler.

She remembered one story her husband would tell of a 65-year-old man about to skydive who stopped to ask Rik Hustler to hold his dentures for him while he jumped for fear they would fall out.

The jump master and accelerated freefall instructor had a way about him, said Hustler, that could convince people to give the sport a try and help them remember important skydiving lessons.

"He had a natural ability to help them relax," said Hustler, who noted that her husband would often give other skydivers and skydiving moves individualized nicknames that stuck. (She quickly ticked off "roller ball in the sky" and "fat-boyed it" to describe skydivers who tumbled and dipped too low during formations, respectively.)

Hustler fondly recalls her husband as "Felix-y" about his rig, special terminology the couple would use to describe their fussiness when it came to being organized.

Hustler said she is glad she had retired from elementary school teaching last June, giving her a last year with her husband.

"A lot of people save up to travel when they're old," she said. "So it's good that we did it while we could."

Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon