AM Show Hr 2| If At 1st You Don't Succeed, Skydiving Isn't For You

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
He was just a rockie from arandy. Sure, he shook with pride.
He checked off his equipment. Imade sure his back was tied.
He had to sit and listen tothose awful engines roar, you jump,
gory glory oorya di goory. Soit's everybody had befride. The sergeant,

(00:50):
looking on hockeyro feebly answered yes,and then they started him off. He
jumped into the icy glasses. Standwine nor sorry, gory way, die

(01:15):
goorry. So he counted long.He counted long. He waited for the
shock. He felt in the wind, He felt the cold, he felt
the almo drawn, the silk fromhis reserves filled out and rupped around his

(01:40):
legs, and he got ry,sorry, go away, die gorry.
He So there were paratroopers, andthe story goes it's a chant that was

(02:17):
from World War Two. It wasfinally recorded. I looked it up.
It was finally recorded by World Wartwo veteran Vincent Sporanza in twenty nineteen and

(02:38):
apparently goes way back. But basedon how many folks send it to me
that fast, it is apparently somethingthat they all know. I looked at
up. It says the song isassociated with all current American airborne units,
including the eighty second airporn Airborne Division, one hundred and seventy third Airborne Brigade,
one hundred first Airborne Division, andthe eleven the Airborne Division, as

(03:01):
well as British airborne units. Itis known as Mancha roja Spanish for red
stain in airborne units from multiple LatinAmerican countries. In Spain, it is
called sangre in les querdas blood onthe Lines on the the The English version,
which is apparently the original, iscalled Blood on the Risers. You

(03:24):
can find it on whatever search engineyou use. Interesting story. I had
never heard that before. Kurt,you're on the You're on the Michael Berry
schre. Let me see if Ican pot you up. Let's see.
Yeh, it's working. Kurt,you're up. Go ahead. Tell me
your jump story. It doesn't haveto be a Vietnam story. Good.
No, this is very short.I was never in the military. I

(03:46):
had a son who was in themilitary still is. He was a major
in the Marines, and he's you'renot an airlines pilot right now, but
still in the reserves. But anyway, he's an Avid h wingsuit and parachuter
hold several world records, and myfamily is very competitive and and he was

(04:09):
always bugging us too for my wifeand I both to jump with him.
And I finally broke down one dayand went with him and did a tandem,
and again it was pretty non event. Boy. I was on an
airplane with a whole bunch of kidswearing shorts and tank tops and tennis shoes,
and my son was in a wingsuitoutfit, and we were going to

(04:32):
jump last since I was a tandemand very un knowledgeable and all this,
and of course I had a guyattached to me that gives me a couple
of hours worth of instruction, andI was really nervous about this, and
I said, well, what doI do if I don't want to,
you know, jump at the tailend? If I want to chick it
out? He gives me the cutyour throat deal and he said, well

(04:55):
stop. And so anyway, weget on airplane, these like twenty kids
jump off in front of us,and they're having a big party. I
mean, they're just hooping and holleringand having a great time. And I'm
sliding towards the door the entire time, and I'm just getting more and more
nervous by the minute, and everyfiber and my body's telling me to stay
away from that hole in the airplane. It's not safe. But anyway,

(05:18):
we get up to the door.It's my turn, and the guy looks
at me and gives me an okaysign and I do the slice of my
throat deal that I didn't want todo it, and he just kicked me
out the door and we went andI'm glad we did it because I would
have been disappointed for my son.But when we hit the Grammar, son
came running over to me and said, Dad, Dad, what was your

(05:41):
most fun part of that? AndI said, well, when the shoot
opened up. Because we're flying onehundred and fifty miles an hour and you're
seeing the ground coming at you,it is a little little dis heartening,
like, oh God, I hopethis works. But anyway, that's why
I still he was very short.Uh, good story. My son is

(06:01):
a he's a world class guy diver. He holds several world records. He's
a member of the United States ParachutingTeam or what has been. He's now
a father and he's kind of cutback on some of that stuff. But
he did hold the world speed recordfor jumping out of an airplane head down
and going as fast as you can, which the world record. Kurt,

(06:27):
thank you, Thank you, MaManman. I would not call that short.
Would you call it short? It'sbeen ten years ago. Did George
H. W. Bush jumped forhis ninetieth birthday? You remember that he
sky died for his nineteth birthday.Richard, You don't have much time,
so be fast, go okay.I was in college needing credit hours,

(06:48):
and I devised a plan to goskydiving, and I've talked one of the
instructors in to give me credit hours. So I did three tandem jumps while
I was at Southwest Texas State nowTexas State University, and they gave you
yes, I did, Yeah,you're dead, and what do you do

(07:09):
now? They went to I'm apolice officer, where uh Fort Being County?
You like it? Been doing itthirty four thirty five years? I
noticed he didn't answer, Ramo,interesting, you've been with the same department
with a cent for all that time, No, sir. I retired from

(07:30):
City of South Houston just about thirtyyears and went to a couple of other
places since then. Well, goodfor you. All right, good story,
Thanks for the call. See ifwe can give up one way in
here real quick? Oh maybe we'reinsta bray. Did Kurt say his son
was like did you hear the endof what he said? He was like

(07:53):
top of the line. Aubrey says, the patron saint of paratroopers is Saint
Michael Ramon. Do you say patronor patron? You say patron Sometimes I

(08:15):
say patron saint. No, Iprobably say patron saint. Yeah, I
probably, I probably pay I probablysay patron saint. You're you're probably right.
Houston Chronicle has a breaking news storytoday. The mosquitoes are bad this
year and it's only going to beworse because of climate change. You can't
make this up. I haven't heardback on how we're doing in Ukraine since

(08:41):
they sent all your tax dollars.I don't know if it made the difference
and all of a sudden the Ukrainiansare winning or not. Just no idea,
but I'll check in because they wehad to talk about it all day
every day until we sent the money, and then we don't talk about it
anymore. Weirdest thing is that ruthA Lee is I can't believe what's that.

(09:05):
I can't believe you said it right. It's a made up name.
Well, I like it though.It's it's kind of like, uh,
it takes ruth and then it addssort of a suffix of a girl.
What's your middle name, Ruth Lye? I don't have one. You don't
have one? That's it? Isit? Are you t h A l
I E? No, it's actuallyare u t h A l e A

(09:30):
Ellie Ruth Lee? Okay, allright? And are you so your mom
made that up? Well? Ithink it was my dad. Yes,
he was in a class in atGeorge Bushton University. That's when they used
to call the role and the girl'sname was actually really, but he heard
it as ruthly and my mother's namewas Ruth. Oh, so it was

(09:54):
Ruth and Ruth Lee. Yeah.I wonder how cold month to ge?
I have a brother. I hada brother Ross. He did not have
a middle name. I'm not surethere were seven of us. None,
and it just got tired of chiget out names. You have the most

(10:16):
charming chuckle. You have a twoto one four exchange. Are you from
Dallas? I've lived in Dallas forthirty five years and came to Rockport chest
for two months and never went on. You like Rockport? Oh my lord,
it's heaven. It's absolutely heaven.I did when I was younger.

(10:41):
I don't anymore. I basically playbridge almost every day. May I ask
an impertinent question? How old areyou? Eighty one? Oh? You
just sound so lovely, You justsound wonderful. You seem like a one
thank you one as my grandmother.Oh well, I have two grandchildren,

(11:03):
and I'm telling you i'd take youtwo. Oh aren't you sweet? Do
you cook for them? I onlydo now. I did it one time,
but now I just bake cookies.Will that counts? If you bake
Rima's wife bags, she's going tomake a good grandmother. Is it just
you there in Rockport? Yes?As a matter of fact, I had

(11:28):
a daughter that had from a lobedementia. They used to call it picks,
and I brought her down with me, but she passed away the year
after Harvey. Oh my, anduh, it's just me. But you
you were married at one point,presumably? Oh? Yes, yes.

(11:48):
My husband and I started hanging outwhen I was fourteen, and we were
married for forty six years and hepassed away with a brain tumor. Oh
my, and who I know?He was, Well, do we have
a woman's club here? And Iplay at the woman's club and then a

(12:11):
lot of us play in each other'shomes. Hold on, Ramon's in my
ear, irritating me. He wantsto know if it would be weird if
you brought him as your get asyour guest to the bridge club one day,
And if so, how long wouldit take you and the ladies to
teach him to play? Like?Literally would be an hour or two.
How hard is it to learn?Well, you know I didn't. I

(12:35):
didn't learn until I was seventy.But it's an ongoing I'm still learning.
I mean, you'll learn every days. It is the most frustrating, humbling
game that sounds like golf. It'svery similar. Right, you have a
good day and a bad day.So what time do you go to meet

(12:56):
for bridge? A couple of usget to tea, the coffee of the
ice and all that ready, andwe leave at eleven thirty in the morning,
and then we go out for martiniafter okay, and we get home
around six o'clock. And so youget there at eleven thirty. That's when

(13:22):
we leave. Yes, and everythingin rock Forty is five minutes away,
so it takes us five minutes toget there. Okay, so you leave
your house at eleven thirty to getthere, that's right. Do y'all ride
together? Well, I don't driveanymore, so somebody picks me up,
usually Britina. What's her name,Bertina Vertina? That's another made up name,

(13:50):
I think it probably is. Andthen so y'all go, and do
y'all have lunch there while you're playingbridge. We have lunch on Monday's pot
luck and then the rest of thetime we eat it home before we go.
There's always snacks and fake goods andwhatever, because you know, we're

(14:13):
like a bunch of Baptists. Weall love to eat. You see,
I'm a Baptist. Do you whatdo you bring for pot luck? Well?
I used to really do lots andlots of things, but now I
just do sauca and chips and popcornstuff like that. Have you ever thought
about doing uh, you know,no, and not really. I'm a

(14:37):
big fan. I'm not even sureanybody ever has. That'd be a at
ruther Lee. How do you thinkI'm done here. Oh my goodness,
I've been listening for fourteen years,and i'm morning and evening. I usually
get home just in time to listen, to turn it on, telling the

(15:00):
truth. Because you said you gothome at six, yep, but we
come on at five. That's whattime you come on. No, I
don't. Oh wait wait wait,what station are you listening on? What
station are you listening on? Wk R l D seven out of where?

(15:22):
Where's that station? Which station?Which one we're on? Which station
is she listening to? It's outof Houston? Oh that's kt R.
H Okay, yeah, yeah,you're listening to another. Okay, we
come on at five, but that'sokay, Ruth de Lee, you are
the call of the week already,and you and even told me what you
were calling about. Well, mystory is really really short. But my

(15:46):
boss I worked for Sally Supply,and my boss was the skydive instructor,
and so we decided that we'd allgo one Saturday. And we're sitting there
and the instructor gets up and hesays, first of all, very very
few people ever get hurt skydiving.You die at half the people left those

(16:15):
of us that stayed, had agreat day, and then did it oh
many many times after that. Ruthie. You know there your delivery. Two
things. You have impeccable timing,which most people don't. You held that
story for a moment, which isperfect in your delivery. And also you

(16:40):
say you know they teach people whenyou're telling a story to smile. Did
you notice I just smile because itchanges the tone of your voice almost subconsciously,
and you sound like you're smiling whileyou're talking. You have just made
my day by calling today, Ruthilye. I'm glad to know you're out there.

(17:00):
Oh I'm out there all the time. And thank you very much for
hearing my story. Oh it wasmy play. You call back again,
Ruthillie. Please. I like herto call back after a couple of martinis
after Bridge Club show. Ramon,you know what, Eddie Martiniz just reminded

(17:22):
me that I'll never beat your bags. What is that supposed to mean.
I'll keep trying though. Let's see, I like Joe and now somebody in
San Anton's gonna be listening a MichaelBerry's talking about you when I wasn't.
Because that's what people do. Theystir up mess. He just reminded me

(17:47):
that we have a Vietnam era paratrooper, Vietnam veteran, combat veteran who's a
paratrooper who we work with, RodWindham. How about that? Rod Wyndham
is like Forrest Gump. Because anybodywho is listening and knows Rod Wyndham knows

(18:11):
this to be true. Rod Wyndhamknew Jerry Klower. He is good friends
with is it Buddy Haley? What'sthe guy's name? But not Haley,
Not Buddy Haley. Haley Barber,very good friends with Haley Barber. If
there's anything that's ever happened in Mississippi, Rod Wyndham was a part of it.

(18:32):
I'm not saying he's bsing. I'msaying, like, literally that is
that is true. All right,let's I got a lot to get to,
so we're gonna finish up this segment. Let's go, David, Rob
Matthew Ted. I'm gonna be quick, so I'll do it. Ramon,
David, I don't want to worryDavid. You're on Michael Berry Show.
Go ahead, Sir, Michael.My story about skydiving reinforces your feelings about

(18:55):
Michael Junior. Going in college,I had a roommate who was a skydiver
and was trying to talk me intogoing. And the issue of that month
skydiving magazine came and I started thumbingprout and it had a list of how
everybody who died that year's skydiving managedto do it, and six six of
them were on their very first staticline jump. But I went, no

(19:15):
way, this is I'm out ofhere. So I just funny you say
that I didn't do any research becauseI told him he could do it,
and I realized that part of beinga parent is that you can't control every
aspect of their life. I madevery clear if you saw the message I
sent him and a phone call,I said, I am not going to
prevent you from doing it. You'reeighteen, you're a legal adult. You

(19:38):
know I'm not going to be thatperson. However, I strongly urge you
not to do it. I thinkit's a terrible idea. I think that
when I look at the ledger ofthings that could go wrong versus the experience,
they don't balance. They're heavily weightedagainst it. So I said my
piece. I didn't do the researchuntil after he had jumped and it I

(20:00):
research David showed that the people mostlikely to have problems are actually the most
experienced jumpers, not the first timers. I think statistically speaking, if you
think of a guy that puts inthree hundred jumps versus a first timer,
if you put in three hundred jumpsevery jump after the fiftieth, you're a
veteran, so you got two hundredand fifty opportunities for things to go real
wrong, whereas a first time jumper. The other thing is a first time

(20:22):
jumper is probably going to be atandem, usually not always, but probably,
and they're probably part of a commercialoutfit whose primary job is to keep
this person alive. Whereas these experiencedjumpers get a little I think they probably
get a little crazy. But look, I've never been a person who was
interested in going out into the wildsand you know whatever that movie was,

(20:45):
the guy that went out for solong, the guy that lived with the
bears and then got destroyed by oneI do I do on my summer trip
to Colorado, I go on ahike where for over an hour I'm by
myself and I love it, andI'm on the top of a mountain,
and there's bears around, and there'sno other person, there's no cell service,
And that is about as wild andcrazy as I get, because that

(21:06):
is nirvana to me. That isa state of complete peace. All right,
Rob, you're up, Go ahead, sir, Hey, Michael,
love your show. I jumped.I jumped you welcome. I jumped back
and skydived back in nineteen ninety eight. I was in the military that never
jumped in the military, and mybrother did and that was part of the
reason why I wanted to do it. And I had had surgery. I'd

(21:29):
had that prostate surgery in nineteen ninetyseven and that went great. That had
left me legally blind, and asI thought about things, I just started
thinking about my brother jumping, somethingI always wanted to do. And I
called up the skydive place and toldhim the deal and said can I jump?
And they said yeah. And soI went out to Waller and went
through a like a six hour groundcourse because I wanted to do the accelerated

(21:52):
free falling off the tandem jump.And so I had a six to seven
hour course with all the dolls andwhistles, and then flew up to about
eleven thousand feet, and I wasnervous because because they said, you know,
you're gonna have to watch for thewaving of the flag and blowing up
smoke, so you know what thewhat the wind direction is? Okay?
Well, anyway, anyway, Iwent up, jumped, and everything's fine.

(22:17):
They had a radio. Radio comeson, I'll give you to do
this that. Then they said we'rechanging radios. They turned it over to
another guy. He says, giveme one a to give me one eight
one eighty. That headed me overto Canada, and so I thought,
well, he's going to give mea correction. He never did, and
I realized I got to move on. But I got two more calls in
this our last segment on this.I apologize, but I don't think we
were within an hour finishing. Matthew, go ahead, Matthew, Yeah,

(22:41):
be quick, go ahead. ButI got one more call I got to
get in. I think we lostMatthew. All right, Ted, you're
the last one. You got abouta minute, go ahead, all right,
one minute? First tandem jump?Is it haunting in Texas? Uh?
Just getting out of the military,going to Texas, A and m

(23:02):
That was my first job out there. Pharmaceudic sales. Basically got on a
plane and it was probably the happiesttime ever realized I had a parachute on.
I think the pilot was drunk,flying all over the place. I'm
a heavy guy. We got atandem in the plane. It took like
fifty minutes to get the altitude,and my knees are hurt, and I'm
like, man, let me justroll out of this thing. I'm ready

(23:22):
to go. So it was acrazy time, and I think that little
Korean pilot was drunk. What isyour what do you tip the scales at
today, Ted, I'm at twoforty six, two forty pretty solid.
Work out a lot. And soactually when we did the tandem jump at

(23:44):
that time, I was about twothirty and they're like, man, we
got to get the skinny guy onyou to get this plane up in the
air. I was worried that theparachute was going to hold me. So
again, that pilot was late comingin plane bobbling. I'm happy vietnammes and
half white and which half drotten inthe valley. Everybody thought. Everybody thought

(24:07):
I was set fanic when I firstwent to the valley. All right,
more to get to can I bragfor a second, and I'll just take
a just a point of personal privilegeto brag. I don't want to betray

(24:30):
personal confidences, but I'm going todo a name drop, and I'm going
to warn you in advance. It'sa name drop. Okay, Hello,
Yeah, So I mean a littlebackground. You have to understand. I
continually stay in touch with who Iwas instead of who I am. When

(24:53):
I came to Houston in nineteen eightynine, I was eighteen years old.
I would turn nineteen a few monthsafter a and the most innovative, the
most well respected, did I losemy drum roll? The most beloved talked
about Houston company that I remember wasCompact Computers. And if you haven't seen

(25:19):
the movie Silicon Cowboys, I encourageyou to do it from a few years
ago, and it's the story ofCompact Computers and three guys from Texas Instruments
that worked at that location literally acrossthe street from the Redneck Country Club,
which, by the way, theRCC was once the workout facility for Texas
Instruments. I'm I'm assuming most ofI'll know that because I've told that before,

(25:40):
But that's what it was what thatbuilding was built as. Anyway,
so those three guys leave and theystart compact computers. So nineteen eighty nine,
I am, I'm new in thiscity and I want to meet people
and I want to be I wantto live in Houston. I like Houston.
I like the people, and soI just started placing phone calls to
people Jack Blnton Houston legend, Iwant to go to lunch with it,

(26:04):
and they almost to a person,they said, yes, busy people.
They didn't know who I was.My name was Jack Spratt, could eat
no fat, and they were justI mean, they didn't know who I
was from anybody. And they wouldgo to lunch and listen to me tell
them who I was and what Iwas working on and what I wanted to

(26:26):
be, And damned if most ofthem didn't make a call at the end
of it to say, oh,well, let me introduce you to Mark
White, a former governor. He'dlike you. Let me introduce you to
Walter Sively And it would just golike that. Well, Rod Kenyon was
the guy I wanted to meet.And then I get to be student nobody
president at UH And at the timeit's getting towards the middle of the George

(26:51):
HW. Bush, so Bush,Senior Bush, the elder forty one as
we called him, and they're builtthe decision as to where his presidential library
is going to go, and Houstonwants that library. It ends up,
of course going to Texas A andM. But it was a joint offer
from Rice University and from the Universityof Houston, and the UH library was

(27:12):
going to be cutting edge, topof the line, innovative, forward,
futuristic because Rod Canyon was chairing thisthing and Compact had laid out all the
things that it was going to betouchscreen. That's nothing to you now,
but in nineteen ninety one that wasthe big deal anyway. So Rod Canyon,

(27:33):
Shepherd's Compact through the sort of defeatof IBM that tried to take them
down, much as Herb keller Hairis the hero of Southwest Airlines and they
tried to take him down. Anotherstory for another day when I got to
meet Herb keller Hair. But RodCanyon was a hero of mine, still

(27:53):
is. And so several years agoI'm with the group of guys and one
of them says, Hey, myfather in laws a fen of you.
Oh, who's your following Rod Kenyon, I bout fell out. You got
to be kidding me. That isthe biggest deal ever. And I say

(28:14):
all that because I just got anemail from him and he was just saying,
hey, and how are you doingit, and sending me an article
to read. And I know thatseems like a small deal. I know
it does. But you have tounderstand. I love old cars, but
I don't collect old cars. Ilike to buy them, I like to
sell them. I don't own aboat. I love boats. I'll go
out to Rinkers boat World tomorrow andride on a boat all over. But

(28:37):
I don't collect boats. I don'tcollect stamps. I don't collect guns.
I don't you know, there's nothingthat really thrills me other than people and
interesting people. They don't have tobe rich, they don't have to be
financially successful, professionally successful, acelebrity. I'm just as interested in Ruthuie,
who's a sweetheart. But people interestme. And I have to tell

(29:00):
you, just looking at my emailsand seeing an email from Rod Canyon,
that's a little shot in the arm, right there. A couple of housekeeping
measures. Number one is we haveseveral show sponsors that are coming on board
something that I've been working on fora while, and it's something is based

(29:22):
on the emails I get asking forassistance with a state planning and a CPA,
which sort of goes in tandem.So I put the word out on
the show, and I put theword out on social media, and we've
done a lot of work behind thescenes, talking to a lot of CPA
firms, individuals and small firms,and a lot of estate planning lawyers,

(29:45):
and we are ready to roll thatout probably as early as next week.
So it's something that's very important tome. A lot of you are my
age and older, and I knowbased on my friends how many of them
have said, I don't have anestate plan So what happens to you?

(30:07):
You don't want to leave that toprobate. Let me just tell you that,
especially if you've got an ex wifewho is the mother of your first
round of kids and you've remarried andnow you're worried about whether if this woman
takes everything, you're going to takecare of your earlier kids. Also if
you're still using a bookkeeper instead ofa full blown CPA, because when you

(30:29):
started, all you could afford wasa bookkeeper and now you're getting more sophisticated.
A CPA can pay for themselves iftheir structured, and keep you out
of prison if they're structuring your businessright and looking for ways to make strategic
decisions with regard to where you spend, how you spend, when you spend.
So I'm not ready to roll thoseout today, but that will be

(30:53):
next week and if you're someone whois in need of that, will be in touch