Jumping at the Chance : Despite sweaty palms before he even got on the plane and a pathetic landing, a first-time sky diver still smiles when he recalls the experience.

I made up my mind early that Saturday morning that, yes, I would make the jump. I would step out of a perfectly good airplane at 3,500 feet and sky-dive. And yes, I would enjoy the experience.

It was 4:30 a.m., and I had gotten only two hours of sleep because I could not stop thinking about the jump. I kept counting down the hours until I would hurl myself into nothingness and fall like an anvil before a parachute opened to save me from becoming just a small wet spot in the Mojave Desert.

Two hours and two cups of coffee later, I was finally there. It still wasn’t too late to just turn the car around and head back home. Who would know? And why was I doing this, anyway?

Bill Reed, my instructor, had said I would be asking myself these questions before I jumped, and he was right. But the best part, he said, was after the jump, when you could stick out your chest, put up your chin and “strut around and say, ‘I’m bad, I’m bad.’ ”

Now that’s an irresistible thought.

I joined a group of six novices, and we spent an hour going over everything we had learned--the proper form when diving, what to look out for, how to use the emergency chute, to steer, to land. My palms began to sweat, and I wasn’t even on the plane yet.

Misery loves company--and mine had plenty. Three of my fellow novices were the Thomases--Barbara came up with the idea of sky-diving several months ago, and she dragged along her husband, Art, and brother-in-law Ed.

“My wife wasn’t terribly excited when she found out I was going to jump,” Ed said. “She tried to come up with a great excuse for me not to jump, so she dug out my life insurance file. But when she found out it covered (sky-diving), she said OK.”

Kim Michaelis, who had five jumps under her belt, would be jumping with us.

“It’s like a high,” she told me. “It’s pure adrenaline. You can’t stop smiling afterward.”

One of the instructors, Steve Groover, towered over my 5-foot-8, 155-pound frame as he strapped me into my equipment. Groover, a sergeant in the Los Angeles Police Department canine unit, made his first jump six years ago.

“I remember the first time I jumped it was on a Friday, and I felt the rush until the following Tuesday,” he said.

At 9:50 a.m., we lined up in our jumping order--I was fifth--and began boarding the plane. In 10 minutes, we were at 3,500 feet and circling the landing zone.

Reed slid the door open, and I peered outside. The hangar that housed the parachute center looked like a matchbox, while the cars looked like a bunch of ants.

We circled four times and dropped off four screaming jumpers. Then it was my turn.

I slid into the spot for the next jumper while Groover furiously checked my gear.

The plane hissed as it slowed to the jumping speed, 70 m.p.h.

“Get in the door!” Reed shouted.

I slid over and dangled my legs out. The air was going so fast that it blew my legs to one side.

“Ready!”

It still wasn’t too late to get back in. Then again, I had talked this up a lot at the office. I couldn’t chicken out now.

“Go!”

I thought I would say something cool like “Geronimo!” when I jumped out, but I could not make a sound as I pushed away from the plane.

After five seconds of free-falling, it suddenly ended. My body jerked backward as something thundered above me. I looked up to see my red and white parachute had opened without a hitch. Nothing was tangled and everything looked OK.

I stared down at the ground and managed to utter “Wow.”

A voice crackled over my radio, telling me to pull my toggles down so I could control where I was going. I reached up behind me and there they were: two red handles connected to the parachute that I would use to steer my way to the ground. I pulled them down and let them back up again.

“There we go,” the voice said.

It got harder as I got closer to the ground, when I had to steer into the wind to land. The voice kept talking, but I couldn’t understand some words or tell if he was talking to me or another jumper.

I steered way off course and knew I was going to come down yards away from the landing zone.

By 200 feet, I could make out shapes clearly, but I was far away from where I should have been. I slowed my chute to half-speed for the landing.

The ground got closer faster than I thought it would. Soon I was at 50 feet. Then 40, 30, 20, 10 . . . .

I panicked. I jammed on my brakes too soon and came to a stop about five feet higher than I should have. I fell the rest of the way down and rolled forward onto my hands and knees.

A pickup truck raced over from the landing zone and an instructor popped out.

“You OK?” he yelled.

“Yeah,” I replied wearily. I was alive, but I was glad no one had taken a picture of my ugly landing.

I dusted myself off, gathered my parachute and hopped into the bed of the truck. I sat there, looked at the scratches on my arms and thought about my pathetic landing.

But that smile Kim talked about really did find its way onto my face, and still does whenever I think about that day.