Scotty who?

 {In fond, loving memory of a jumper & friend who added a lot of “spice” to our skydiving lore} Blue Skies Carbone! always in “The Zone” ............    It’s never too late for a Scotty Carbone story; I met Scotty in 72, we were both novice jumpers rising through the ranks at the Stormville Parachute center in NY. We were both “City boys” and I knew in an instant that Carbone was a clever, street smart hustler. I also learned he was a very skilled & talented individual and had that certain charm about him,(you loved him or not-so-much at all). We became jump buddies and friends. Scotty never seemed to have a “real” job, a car or any money but he always managed to get by. Since I lived in Brooklyn and he was on my way to the DZ, I would often give him a ride and believe me, surviving the 90 minute drive was an act of significant personal discipline. But as you may guess, there was always a surprise or two w/ him, some nights the, (OLD DIAL), phone would ring, like 2-3 in the morning, I would answer; “you BleepN recti, you woke my parents up, F—Off, I’ll pick you up at 8...” and too many times he wasn’t even home but somehow made it to the DZ anyway. During the next decade we jumped, competed, partied and we’re on a 10-man, speed star team together;(The Spaced Rangers). One of our guys,(Wayne S)got us a DZ sponsor for our jumps; Lakewood Parachute Center,NJ. They had a DC-3 and needed/wanted us to fill every load to help lower their cost of putting out static line students, so for $3 a jump we’d take our 12-13 slots and practice from about 7-7500’.  Lakewood was a VERY conservative DZ and The Rangers w/ Carbone, (not-so-much). Their DZ manager always kept a watchful eye on us and our coolers, one day during a hold for low clouds, our cooler lids were active and later when the skies cleared, we hustled our gear on then headed to the 3, but In our way, is the manager, he’d seen enough and points to,(you know who), and says, “I want to smell your breath!”... well of course Scotty obliges in spontaneous Carbone fashion; he runs up to him, puts him in a bear hug, and smoothers this guys face with his wide open mouth. Scotty breathes hard into his face for about 10-15 seconds, (while we are pissing our pants laughing), then says “was that enough?” and lets him go, the poor guy did not know what happened. We boarded, jumped, broke off above 25, landed and packed... We never got checked again!! I can tell you dozens of Carbone Capers but if you’ve spent any amount of time w/ Scotty, you probably can too, that one was special...

Scotty was chiding some guy on a mullins load using his croaky voice and pumping the load up. We were all like 100 to 200 jump rookies there for a 99 dollar all you can jump boogie. Scottie was the load master. We were in the face of roality. Scotty in his croaky voice was giving chides. Noone was wanting to be the victom. He looked at me n i said check your reserve handle its out. He thanked me. See never be afrade to help.

At a Spring Fling at DeLand around 87 or 88, I saw Scotty do the best low pull that I ever saw…Formation broke off directly over the packing area. Everyone pulled except one jumper who was flailing their arms and legs at a super low altitude. Extremely low. Finally he tosses his PC, opens, makes a turn and lands in a tiny area where he was working. It was Scotty.

If anyone else had done that they would have tossed them out. Pretty crazy.