Granny And Sonny Bail Out

David Cox is pretty tight with his 72-year old grandmother, Barb Hickman. So tight, in fact, that when he recently went over the river and through the woods, she told him she wanted to do something to bring them even closer.

Jumping out of a perfectly good airplane should do the trick.

"She's crazy," the 22-year old Cox said in an interview with the Midland (MI) Daily News. "She rode an elephant through the jungle in Thailand."

Grandma agreed. "I think I was the one that said, 'Gee, David, that looks like fun.' And he said, 'Do you want to do it, Grandma?'"

Hey, this lady will ride an elephant. Nothing is beyond her.

The Daily News reports about a year later, David took time off from his masters studies at the Rochester (NY) Institute of Technology and headed to Midland.

Now, Grandma-with-the-nerves-of-steel started having second thoughts. "He called ... to say it's all set up, and the legs just started shaking," she told the Midland paper.

So the two went to the Mount Pleasant Municipal Airport and the headquarters of Central Michigan Skydivers. Since there was only one instructor on duty at the time, they decided Granny would go on the first of two trips to 11,000 feet.

David stood next to CMS co-owner Maryanne Kelly and watched her jump plane make the long, long climb to 11,000 feet.

"There she goes, look, she's that tiny orange dot," Maryanne pointed as Barb Hickman jumped with tandem instructor Scott Schlosser strapped onto her back.

"That was good," Barb said, hugging her grandson after a perfect landing.

Of course, then it was David's turn. After he'd suited up and was climbing into the jump plane, his grandmother said to him, "I think the first thing we should do when you come down is call your mother, and say we are still alive."

Ah, parents. They so often worry. Perhaps they'll worry more when Granny and Grandson take up deep sea diving.

FMI: www.skydivecms.com