PROGRESSIVE

So what is Stickmans real name?

Am I correct that Earnie got kicked out of Osceola due to too many close calls and went to Baldwin to fly jumpers? One time I heard he had an engine go bad due to overheating and everyone bailed out. After Earnie landed, he pulled a birds nest from the cowling of the bad engine.

I remember one winter me and my buddy Dave, crashed at his small apartment with at least two loads of skydivers sleeping shoulder to shoulder with the hopes of skydiving the next day in 10 degree temperatures. The living room floor was covered with people and sleeping bags. His apartment in downtown Osceola, was decorated with skydiving photos and rigs scattered about for some rigging work. On one wall he had a picture of a Lodestar with a prop feathered taken from another aircraft. I asked "Q" what happened. He said, "an engine went out, and we jumped." It took most of the day for the jumpers to hitchhike back to the club house after that jump. God only knows which state they jumped into. We pretty much took over his apartment. He never complained. His thoughts were, "great! I can skydive tomorrow!" It was soooo cold, but we jumped anyways in the middle of January. As long as the ceiling wasn't too low and there were enough jumpers...(well sometimes there weren't) we skydived. Rigger Rat, Landrew, Big Mike, Bergy, Miles, always seemed to be there, rain, snow, or shine. The club house was pretty much a dump, but there were always good tunes playing on the cheap cassette player, which was more important than a clean place to sleep, or pack a parachute. Good times! Pete

I wish i had taken pictures of the DZ, the partys, the skydives. As I get older, those memories grow fonder. I'm sure I'm not alone on this issue. Pete

The unknown dz is Coolidge, AZ, aka, Goulidge. The locals their got pissed at the skydivers for that piece of art on the roof. The driveway into the dz has a small sign at the side of the road saying, "Skydivers go in here," with an arrow pointing into the enterance. That sign is now gone too. My friend has a picture of the club house roof at the late Osceola, Wis DZ saying, "Goofy Lives." This, I believe refers to Gary Hannah, I think. Gary Hannah, or Greg Wirth, use to jump at Osceola and fly jumpers as well. This was before my time, but I remember the late JQ, and the other club members would always talk about these guys after their crash. Pete

Everytime I hear those old radial engines flying over my house in Salt Lake, I have to either look out the window, or run outside to see what it is. My wife thinks I'm nuts, but than again, shes never jumped out of a DC3, Twin Beech D18, etc. Pete

I was on the ground when Hernick and you guys did this jump. I was still a newby blasting through formations. I also remember when Hernick had a mid-air on deployment at the Osceola DZ, and did a cut-away. GT Bogut gave him some crap about how shake'n up he was and Hernick blasted him with a bunch of F... Y..! Good times! Pete

I think this is the same crash. Everyone died. Sky Train would fly for the North Central Conference in 1980, or 81? at Osceola Wisconsin. Goofy flew for the jumpers for awhile, and I believe started to fly/ owned Sky Train, and had this accident. Pete

This wasn't Sky Train that crashed, and the pilot's nickname was "Goofy.?" Where during the summers he would fly loads at Osceola Wisonsin?

Yep, I canoed up the Knife lakes and into Canada, from Ely, when I was just a little shaver. God's country. Back then, you would drink right out of the lake. No problems with parasites, or diareha, etc. Later, we would start at the end of the Gun Flint Trail, and canoe into Canada. Utah, too, is a beautiful state to explore, on the ground, the rivers and in the air! Blue Skies! Pete

I met Lyle Jr, at Elsinore in the late 80's. He asked me if I had any pictures, or stuff, memorablia of his father. He wouldn't remember me. One year at the Minnesota Skydiving Club, Lyle Sr, should up as a guest speaker. Apparently, he got a speeding ticket going through Wisconsin. The cops there require immediate payment for the ticket. He told the cop, "I was only doing terminal." Everyone laughed and had a great old time. That was in the early 80's. Life seemed to be soooo much fun back then! Never a dull moment. Pete

I remember back in the early 80s when I went to Marana Skydiving Center to compete in the collegiate comp, Lyle Cameron, and King Morten were one of the judges there. He and King Morten at the end of the day were in the local bar playing the Cardinal Puff game. I had never, ever seen so much concentration on Lyle and everyone else playing that game. Not even the competors that were skydiving had such concentration and determination! It was fun to watch. Pete

The hard part of this ordeal is not the injury, but rather no longer doing the skydiving thing, etc. I believe we're wired differently from the rest of the population that makes us true adventure seekers. Sure, I can ignore my parallysis and my knee injury, and go skydiving, but I think my wife would throw in the towel. Pete

Oh yeah, I can stay alive until then. I'm learning how to play Bingo, checkers, etc, rather than doing things that are really fun, like skydiving, hanggliding, skiing. Definitely, look me up when you head out west. I'm 20 minutes south of downtown Salt Lake. Pete PS: The left broken knee cap shows my plate mounted on my tibia from my hang gliding accident on 7-7-7. And yes, I now believe I am accident prone and will stick to gardening!

Nice video. Go Low Bucsko, and Debbie are the only two that I recognized. No new info on Stickman. I've been laid up in the hospital due to a skiiing accident. I hit a tree and the tree won. Maybe now that I am home and disabled to some degree, I'll have some time to look into the whereabouts of Stickman. Pete

The Beech oops, that's another Earnie story, isn't it? I started jumping in 79, and that was one of the storys I heard at the Baldwin, Wisconsin DZ. Upload thos picutures! That would be great. Pete

Any body on the Beech load that Earnie Joiner was flying? On the way to altitude one engine began to overheat. Everyone bailed out. Earnie landed without incedent. Parked the plane and pulled out a birds nest in the cowling. There's a lot more stories, but I'll dole them out over time as to not monopolize this thread. Oh yeah. Not only did they have a leg coming down from the ceiling of the club house. On the wall was a fabric poster that was beginning to mildew, about 10 ft square advertizing the old Burt Lancaster movie, "The Gypsy Moths." There was a picuture of a four way round taken from above the formation and below the photo it said, "Gypsy Moths, not only a way to live, but a way to die!" I thought that was bad ass! Pete

I see if I can locate stick man and let you know. Good times back then. I'm glad that I survived.

I heard Stick Man, was still in Minneapolis. He has a belly now. Robbie, the pilot at Osceola that had purchased a Beech D18 to fly jumpers, that was prevously an owner of a marina, was killed delivering paychecks. If its the same guy, Robbie had complete power loss on a night flight and apparently had the perfect approach into an open field, but he hit some high tension wires. I never new his last name, but I think its the same guy, Murray. Robbie had about 1k jumps, and had a pierced ear. A cool cat. As mentioned before, the DZ had a curse in that when ever somebody would buy a big plane (bigger than a 206) the pilot would get killed within a couple of years of the purchase.

Nope, I'm sad to say I'm not in the nude pyramid pix. I've jumped at Superior Wisconsin, two time, I think. Tight airstrip. Tight DZ. A lot of mechanical turbulence when the winds picked up due to the tall pine trees. The hill at the end of the runway always got my attention too. What a life. Run a bar and operate a DZ. They go hand in hand. I've jumped with Mark Androwsky, a couple of times. He had a Rapid Transit System that he damaged from a smoke jump. I also jumped with Q, Quasy, Vicky Churches, Art, Bob Ivy, Marsha Buckintine, "Landrew," and others, but never with Rigger Rat, or Stick Man. Stick Man and the other pilot, Moochie, were on their way out of the sport. Rigger Rat, only jumped occassionally. Pete

Wow, this thread has been resurrected! There are a lot of Earnie stories out there. I think he eventually got kicked out of Osceola, and went to Baldwin, Wisconsin to fly jumpers. I know I've jumped out of his plane many times, a C182 with the Star of David painted on the side. I remember I got my SCS at Osceola, and I purchased only a twelve pack of beer. No one would sign their full name on the SCS form because I didn't by a case, only half of one. Everyone just laughed at me. My buddy went out to that, now closed drop zone, a couple of years ago and took pictures of the club house. On the roof someone had painted, "Goofy Lives!" Goofy died trying to take off on the Alaskan shoreline with a plane load of salmon. Sky Train (DC3), that he was flying never had enough airspeed because the tires sank into the sand, due to high tide coming in. He died. There had always been an unspoken curse with that dz, in that when ever a pilot had purchased a large jump ship for the dz, they would parish within the first couple of years after its addition to the drop zone. We had fun. And at the age of 17, while jumping there, no one at my high school had better stories than me as to what they did over the weekend. Pete D-8150

Wasn't it with you, Rita, and Vickey that went? I thought you guys left him behind because he was late, and is known for always being late...like being several days late? If I remember correctly, Vickey was miffed at the time. Pete

John Yeager and Pink Floyd were old time Minnesota skydivers. John jumped a lot in Alexander, MN, and Pink jumped at Osceola, Wis. I can still smell the aroma of conga coming out of the club house in Osceola, listening to Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, jamming away. Ahh, the good old days! I'm glad to survive them. Pete

The late Gordy Hansen, creator of Grandpa's Boogie in Albert Lea Minnesota, had a coon hound named Otto. Now Gordy loved that hound and where ever Gordy went, so did Otto. Gordy's love was so strong for the pooch, that he made a special skydiving harness so Otto could always be with Gordy, on the ground and in the air. They were inseperable. Two peas in a little disfunctional pod. Over the years Otto became so proficient at static line jumps, that this old hound dog looked better in the air than his owner. One day, however, things did not go according to plan, as Otto was going to make a demo jump in front of all the families in southern Minnesota, at the local Hy Vee grocery store. Gordy had fastened one end of a 200 foot long rope to his bumper of his car, and the other end to Otto and his harness. Without a clear, "ready, set, go!" Gordy "gunned it" accellerating acoss the parking lot with poor Otto in tow, sliding across the pavement until the pooch finally got airborne. After gaining about 150 feet or so, Otto performed a cutaway (he fell out the harness) and bounced in front of the all the children, moms and dads that came out to see Otto, the flying dog. Albert Lea was never the same after this. RIP

Wow! A blast from the past! I'm the guy on the far left kneeling in the blue Silly Suit. Next to me is Mark Hernick, on my right. Jim ? is out in front. Our fearless pilot. Gary Hoffman is 3rd from the left, kneeling. T-Bone Meyer is 4th from the left in the White RW suit. Randy Iverson and Russell ? is at the end kneeling. Second row from the left is Greg Pillan, Swede, Mark Brown, ?, Mike Livieri in the red suit, Stan Cronister, far right in the balloon suit. On the wing is the other pilot and jumper, Mike Hayden. Greg Pillan was killed the same year this picture was taken due to a motorcycle accident. Several years later Mark Hoffman, Christy Hoffman, JQ and Quasy, along with another young man were killed over Osceola, Wisconsin on a winter jump. They were killed in a mid air collision with another plane being piloted by a student pilot and his instructor. T-Bone Meyer was electricuted while working as a line man. This picture was taken at the Oshkosh air show in 82? I believe. I pissed off T-Bone that weekend when I laid his brand new Rapid Transit System against his van tire that had oil residue along the outside edge. The airport just got done resurfacing their driveway and parking lots. Opps...sorry T-Bone. Post more pictures Mike!