Three guys named Donald Hickey jump out of an airplane together. Sounds like the set up for a joke. But it happened recently in the skies over Deland.
Three generations of Hickey men – grandfather, father and son – went skydiving. For the grandfather and father, it was their first time. For the son, 40-year-old “Donnie,” it was his 5,128th jump since 2011. For 83-year-old Don (known as “Pap-aw” to his grandson), and 63-year-old Don (Donnie’s father), it was jump #1.
It all started when Donnie talked with his father and grandfather about making a jump. While experienced jumpers like Donnie will make five to seven jumps a day as part of his job, novices are “paired,” or attached, in front of a qualified jumper. A tandem master (an accredited expert in making tandem jumps) and with Accelerated Free Fall credentials, Donnie had wanted the three generations make the jump together for a long time. “Pap-aw is healthy and strong, but he is getting on. So, we wanted to make the jump now.”
After getting suited up, the Hickey’s went up in a Skydive DeLand plane with several other jumpers. Pap-aw and Donnie were attached in tandem – grandfather/grandson – and Don was in tandem with one of Donnie’s friends.
The other jumpers were a bit slow in their exit at 14,000 feet and the plane had to make a return run over the jump zone. The routine is for the tandem jumpers to scoot on their bottoms across the aircraft floor to the door, and stop with their legs dangling out, gripping the bottom of the plane. The videographer hangs out, standing in the slipstream, holding onto the airplane, to get shots of the pair exiting.
Pap-aw noted that at that point, “I had no fear whatsoever.” But Donnie, for the first time in his jumping career, had a moment of nervousness. “I suddenly realized, this is my 83-year-old grandfather and we’re jumping together!”
The videographer shouted, “Breathe!” and Donnie was able to focus and relax. Up to that point, Donnie’s oldest tandem jumper had been 78.
“We both set a new record that day,” he says.
The skydive from 14,000 feet usually starts as freefall – no parachute – for the first 7,000 or 8000 feet. That takes about one minute, and the skydivers reach speeds of over 150 feet per second, or over 100 miles per hour. Then, the tandem master pops the steerable chute for the final part of the descent, floating down for about five minutes on the way to the landing target.
Because sorting one Donald Hickey from another can get very confusing, we’re going to formalize their names. First, there is 83-year-old Pap-aw, a retired Salvation Army officer living in Leesburg. His son, Don, 63, is owner-chef at The Burger Station in the Shell gas station at Colony Plaza on County Road 466A. The youngest is Don’s son, Donnie, sky diving instructor and pilot at Skydive DeLand.
The “Donalds” Hickey originated in Richmond, Ind., where Pap-aw’s mother played the piano in the Salvation Army church for 75 years.
“When she was 15 years old, she heard the Salvation Army band and said, ‘Whatever that band is, I want to go to that church.’ After years of playing at the church, she knew all of the hymns by heart.”
Growing up, the Hickeys – Don, his brother and sister – all played various instruments, including the cornet.
“We always had our own family cornet band,” Pap-aw laughs.
“My father named me Donald Clark, in memory of his father, and because he didn’t want anyone to call me ‘Junior,’” Don says. “But, I named my son Donald Clark Jr.”
In 1960, Pap-aw and his late wife, Hallie, were ordained as Salvation Army officers.
“After that, we moved to a new place about every three years,” Pap-aw notes. “Most people think that the Salvation Army is about the ringing bells at Christmas, thrift stores and helping the needy. But the Salvation Army is currently the biggest Christian church in the world.”
It was founded by William Booth in 1865 in England and now has members in over 130 countries.
“I’ve been a chef all of my life,” says Don. “Country clubs, institutional, I’ve done it all. One day my son calls and says, ‘Daddy, there’s a restaurant over here in The Villages, at a gas station, you need to check it out.’ So, I did.”
He discovered that about 1,100 people a day came in the door.
That was six years ago and accolades from throughout the community have boosted the number. Don credits his popularity to a limited menu of fresh meats and produce.
“I hand-pick the lettuce and tomatoes at the store,” Don says. “We bread the never-frozen pork tenderloin every day. It’s like comfort food for Midwesterners.”
Don credits Linda, his business and life partner who is behind the restaurant counter every day, for much of his success.
Donnie, the one who started the Donalds-jumping-out-of-airplanes idea, has a commercial pilot’s license and hopes to fly for an airline at some time in the future. In the meantime, he takes people skydiving.
Safety is his biggest consideration. He packs his own parachute – “No one touches my chute except me,” he says.
Tandem jumping helps novices become familiar with the procedures, when to open and how to maneuver the parachute, and the skills involved in landing safely. “The chute is affected by the wind and weather so there some skill and experienced needed to stay on course.”
The final reaction? Pap-aw said that he never felt nervous at all. Don reported that he laughed all the way down and couldn’t stop laughing when back on terra firma. Donnie, after his nervous moment at the plane door, said that jumping with his Pap-aw was the greatest thrill of his life and that their landing was “the softest landing, ever.”
You can watch the video of Don at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S44hGS6h4Y and of Pap-aw and Donnie at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQHzLm_Ha2w.
John W Prince is a writer and Villager. For more information visit www.GoMyStory.com.