Origin of "Boogie"
Alex
February edition of Skydiving magazine which boasts an awesome picture of
jumpers launching a 6-way wegde from a skyvan. Slowly my eyes drift to the
article underneath which reads "Western DZs End 1998 With Successful
Boogies."
"BOOGIES" - After looking at that word for about 5 minutes I decide that I
will never figure out why someone decided on that word to describe Skydiving
events. I thought someone out there might be able to shed some light?
Alex
JRPraeter
A bit of History: In 1972 shortly after the release of the first skydiving
movie "Gypsy Moths" to the public, the stunt double for Burt Lancaster, Garth
Taggart, was asked to do something with skydivers in his home town of Richmond,
Indiana. Until then skydivers only gathered for competition at
Confrence(Regions) meets or the Nationals held by USPA. Garth decided to have
a gathering for fun, brought in some Twin Beeches and a DC 3. The Richmond
Boys Club sponsered the ferry fees and the call went out to all the Drop Zones
in the area. The turnout was phenomenal, lots of jumps and lots of just plain
fun. In the 60's and 70's there was a cartoon character called the Boogie man
best known for his phrase "Keep on Truckin' " Garth decided to borrow the
name Boogie and became the first "Boogie man." The original Boogie turned
into the Nationals at the end of the 70's. The sport was growing rapidly and
had a bit of a "motorcycle gang" reputation. Skydivers were banned from the
City of Richmond, In for several years, due to their excesses. In 1986 the
Boogie was brought back to Richmond, and is going strong every Labor Day
Weekend. The boogie is second only to the convention in size and number of
jumps. Garth Taggart was home in 1998 for the Boogie and continued to jump and
have fun.
Jim
JRPraeter wrote in message <19990319104033...@ng-fs1.aol.com>...
Cool!! And all this time I thought it was for that stuff that seems to find
it's way from your sinuses to you face courtesy of a 120mph vaccum!
Jim
People die in airplane
crashes. I have chosen
to remove that possibility
from my loop!
Blue Skies!!
Bill Gamelson
>>skydiving movie "Gypsy Moths" to the public, the stunt double for >>Burt
Lancaster, Garth Taggart, was asked to do something with >>skydivers in his
home town of Richmond, Indiana.
Great story! Here's another true story about Gypsy Moths:
The movie was filmed in Benton Kansas at the local airport. The audience in
the demo scenes were townspeople from Benton. In the scene where it shows
Burt Lancaster going in, the moviemakers wanted a realistic audience
reaction to the bounce scene. So they threw a drop dummy out of the plane
and told the people it was just another skydiving scene. The dummy went in,
and the townspeople really believed they had just witnessed a fatality. It
was a realistic audience reaction. The scene where the guy almost went in
was simply the same scene ran twice, and the audience applause after the guy
pulled real low was another scene edited in. After everyone thought they
had seen someone die, they all left, really. The announcer tried to tell
everyone that is was just a joke, but nobody was in the mood to listen. The
next day, the papers came out with the story, that it was a dummy and not a
real person. To this very day skydiving is not allowed in Benton Kansas.
We can take off from Benton just as long as we keep a low profile, we just
can't drop jumpers over Benton because of what happened that day.
Cricket202
and it is the best "BOOGIE" East of the Missippi!!!!!!
The above message is "MY OPINION" and nothing more ( no claim to be fact!) ..so
take it as the good humored 2 cents worth it was meant as..and don't e-mail me
telling me I spelled something wrong!!!!!
BLUE SKIES!!!