At age 92, Pat Curry's advice is to jump from 10,500 feet

May 30—ROCHESTER — A freefall of 5,000 feet. Five minutes of silence in the air. A scoot-stopping descent to the ground. These are the thrills of skydiving that two Rochester residents recommend.

"My advice is jump," said Pat Curry, 92.

His theme of encouraging people to skydive while they're young matches the sentiment of former president George H.W. Bush who went

skydiving several times, including for his 90th birthday.

"I did beat President Bush. He was 90," Curry remarked with a smile.

With a wind-smacked grin and a desire to soak in the landscape, Curry flew excitedly through his second skydiving experience with his 70-year-old friend Steve Melvin on May 20. Both had tandem partners in the 10,500-foot jump.

"You can do your hands like Superman ... you can steer yourself with your hands if you let the wind," Melvin said.

For his 60th birthday, Melvin jumped into the world of skydiving, and what started as a bucket list item became part of his lifestyle. Over his 16 experiences, Melvin's awed over mountains and the Gulf of Mexico from the thousand-foot vista.

"The adrenaline. I like to see it from a different perspective," Melvin said of his continued skydiving experiences. "One of the times (I) went up in Wisconsin and came down through clouds so you could feel the mist, like fog. There was one time I jumped in October and you could see the ice."

Each experience comes with unique views, flight paths and landings. Over Waseca, Melvin and Curry viewed the "patchwork" of fields and lakes as well as the city.

While reviewing their experience together at Fairway Ridge Cooperative in Rochester, Curry said he "totally enjoyed it." He first parachuted 50 years ago in a "boring jump" with encouragement from a friend. And until Melvin moved to the residential retirement community, Curry was the only male resident who had skydived. Melvin's numerous jumps in nine different states put a "bug in (his) ear."

During their jump in May, the tandem teams made a few maneuvers in different directions. "There's a lot of trust in your tandem partner," Melvin remarked. The parachutes "turn like an airplane," Curry described. He's flown over 500 hours as a pilot, including flying the same airplane the two jumped out of in Waseca.

"Actually, Steve and I and that man upstairs picked a perfect day. The gods were with us, it was perfect. No clouds," Curry said. "Once you get out of the airplane, you hear no noise at all maybe your heart beating or your legs knocking around a bit but you don't hear any ground noise until you get almost into landing."

More friends have shared their interest in skydiving with them, though Melvin's next skydiving adventure will continue in New Zealand. He plans to keep skydiving and adding family members and friends in the experience. "I enjoy the jumping and the adrenaline but also the people you meet and talk to," Melvin said.

The two jumped early in the season, just about a month after Curry's birthday.

"It was exciting. Would I do it again? Yes. Even at my age, yes," Curry said. "This would be something that I thought about maybe I'd like to do every year on my birthday."