Vol. 28, No. 6 #9 (December 2005). Defying the Law of Gravity.

• Author: By Mary Angell

Wyoming Bar Journal

2005.

Vol. 28, No. 6 #9 (December 2005).

Defying the Law of Gravity

WYOMING LAWYERDecember 2005/Vol. XXVIII, No. 6Defying the Law of GravityBy Mary Angell

One balmy afternoon last September, two Laramie attorneys braved the law of gravity by jumping out of a plane and parachuting 12,500 feet to the ground. "It was the coolest 56 seconds of my life," mediator Amy Jenkins said of her free fall. "It was really a celebration and affirmation of life and birthdays and may there by many more."

Jenkins and her friend Becky Lewis, a sole practitioner and Bar Counsel for the Wyoming State Bar, went skydiving to mark Lewis' 50th birthday. Together, they talked about their experience and what it meant to them with the Wyoming Lawyer.

"It was way cooler than I thought it would be," Lewis said. "And when I say this is the coolest thing I've ever done, I have a lot to compare it with." Lewis has ridden an elephant through the jungles of Thailand, sailed up the coast of Malaysia, dived off the Great Barrier Reef. Even so, she wanted to free fall.

"I've been on a glider and in a balloon. I wanted not to fly or float. I did it to feel what it feels like to fall," she said. "My fear was when we were done, we were going to say, 'Shoot, that wasn't enough,' but we free fell for 56 seconds."

"It was an amazingly long time. It seemed to go on and on," a wide-eyed Jenkins broke in, admitting that she panicked to the point of using uncharacteristically colorful language before she urged the instructor to pull the chord.

The women reached a maximum speed of 144 miles per hour during their jump, twisting and flailing horizontally to the sound of the rushing air until the opening of the chute brought a "wonderful change of orientation and sound," Jenkins said. Accompanied by skydiving instructors - or tandem masters - their exhilarating jump ended with a safe landing. They immediately found a patch of grass by the side of the road and uncorked a bottle of Dom Perignon to toast 50 years of living and living large. Lewis donned a birthday crown and fairy wings, which she unabashedly wore into the restaurant afterward.

Friends for about ten years, Jenkins met Lewis while mediating one of her cases. They got to know each other better through a mutual friend, Kathy Hunt - also a Wyoming attorney. Together, the three women vowed to...