Up, Up, and Away

[gimp80995]

Normally I don't let people see parts of my sermon (yes, I do occasionally do sermons at church).........they must be part of the audience..........but this one should be quite entertaining........it's the opening I did for one of my sermons on God's control in our lives.

Enjoy

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Well, I didn't write what I'm about to read to you all today, but most of you know how easily I get motion sickness, therefore you will realize that I could have very easily been the one who wrote it.

Now this message for America's most famous athletes: Someday you may be invited to fly in the back-seat of one of your country's most powerful fighter jets. Many of you already have -- John Elway, John Stockton, Tiger Woods to name a few. If you get this opportunity, let me urge you, with the greatest sincerity.... Move to Guam. Change your name. Fake your own death. Whatever you do, do not go. I know.

The U.S. Navy invited me to try it. I was thrilled. I was pumped. I was toast!

I should've known when they told me my pilot would be Chip ("Biff") King of Fighter Squadron 213 at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach. Whatever you're thinking a Top Gun named Chip (Biff) King looks like, triple it. He's about six-foot, tan, ice-blue eyes, wavy surfer hair, finger-crippling handshake-the kind of man who wrestles dyspeptic alligators in his leisure time. If you see this man, run the other way. Fast.

Biff King was born to fly. His father, Jack King, was for years the voice of NASA missions. ("T-minus 15 seconds and counting.... " Remember?) Chip would charge neighborhood kids a quarter each to hear his dad. Jack would wake up from naps surrounded by nine-year-olds waiting for him to say, "We have a liftoff."

Biff was to fly me in an F-14D Tomcat, a ridiculously powerful $60 million weapon with as much thrust as weight. I was worried about getting airsick, so the night before the flight I asked Biff if there was something I should eat the next morning.
"Bananas," he said.
"For the potassium?" I asked.
"No," Biff said, "because they taste about the same coming up as they do going down."

The next morning, out on the tarmac, I had on my flight suit with my name sewn over the left breast. (No call sign-like Crash or Sticky or Leadfoot but, still, very cool.) I carried my helmet in the crook of my arm, as Biff had instructed. A fighter pilot named Psycho gave me a safety briefing and then fastened me into my ejection seat, which, when employed, would "egress" me out of the plane at such a velocity that I would be immediately knocked unconscious.

Just as I was thinking about aborting the flight, the canopy closed over me, and Biff gave the ground crew a thumbs-up. In minutes we were firing nose up at 600 mph. We leveled out and then canopy-rolled over another F-14. Those 20 minutes were the rush of my life!

Unfortunately, the ride lasted 80.

It was like being on the roller coaster at Six Flags. Only without rails. We did barrel rolls, sap rolls, loops, yanks and banks. We dived, rose and dived again, sometimes with a vertical velocity of 10,000 feet per minute. We chased another F-14, and it chased us. We broke the speed of sound. Sea was sky and sky was sea. Flying at 200 feet we did 90-degree turns at 550 mph, creating a G force of 6.5, which is to say I felt as if 6.5 times my body weight was smashing against me....And I egressed the bananas. I egressed the pizza from the night before. And the lunch before that. I egressed a box of Milk Duds from the sixth grade. I made Linda Blair look polite.

Because of the G's, I was egressing stuff that did not even want to be egressed. I went through not one airsick bag, but two. Biff said I passed out. Twice. I was coated in sweat. At one point, as we were coming in upside down in a banked curve on a mock bombing target and the G's were flattening me like a tortilla and I was in and out of consciousness, I realized I was the first person in history to throw down.

I used to know cool. Cool was John Elway throwing a touchdown pass, or Greg Norman making a five-iron bite. But now I really know cool.

Cool is guys like Biff, men with cast-iron stomachs and Freon nerves. I wouldn't go up there again for all the money in the world, but I'm glad Biff does every day, and for less money per year than a rookie reliever makes in a home stand.

A week later, when the spins finally stopped, Biff called. He said he and the fighters had the perfect call sign for me. Said he'd send it on a patch for my flight suit. What is it? I asked. "Two Bags."


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So.........whaddya think? I usually try to start my sermons with a joke or funny story to loosen me up..........once I have my audience laughing WITH me it's a lot easier for me to calm down about the public speaking.



Peace Out

-Gimp

[Catspaw]

It is amusing, though somewhat gross! Not hilarious, but that might be what you're going for - nothing that will make people giggle throught the rest of your sermon!

[chexfan2000]

Haha... that's funny...

[gimp80995]

OK.........after seeing to (simi-conflicting) posts in response I got a friend to read it first.............then hear the way I read it in the sermon..........he said that it SOUNDS way more funny than it appears when just reading it.

Peace Out

-Gimp

[J-man]

I like it. That tells me that I definately don't want to ride in a fighter jet if they're like that.

[gimp80995]

I like it. That tells me that I definately don't want to ride in a fighter jet if they're like that.

Again, I didn't write that article (but I could have been the author.......if I ever had been in a fighter jet)...........but living really close to Naval Air Station Oceana, and having those jets go overhead sometimes every 15 seconds ALL DAY and into the night..........I'm guessing that article was not an understatement.

Peace Out

-Gimp

[J-man]

Yeah, I thought you weren't the author.

[gimp80995]

Yeah, I thought you weren't the author.

Nope.........but if I ever were to go into one of the fighter jets I could easily write a very similar aricle

Peace Out

-Gimp