The familiar sound of my own footsteps walking towards the tower. I like them low and this promises to be intense. Northgate Tower 325ft., strong wind blowing to the west. It's going to be my last jump with Earl. Earl my mentor, compadre, someone I can talk to without the hinderance of words.

Being able to smell the fear on each other as we flew under Parrots Ferry at 120 knots. Maybe it was just the persperation of four days on a suicide run we jokingly called a vacation.

The footsteps with the lively step of a child and the resounding force of a man. Years watching these footsteps grow take shape, comforting to hear the steady gait. Not yet aware of the change, an echo, like someone walking with a broken thong. Closer to the tower each step has a companion, two footsteps where before there was only one.

Reaching up to the first rung of the ladder, seeing a hand grasp the cold steel. The hand, hot burning with a fire that is normally surpressed. A second hand reaching up in unison, strong expressing strength aquired from time, cool like ice.

Climbing, burning within, kept in check by the cold mist that surrounds the other. Higher I climb, the height becomes fuel for the fire. Forcing the two to meet, hoping contact will keep the fire from burning too bright. The cold wind whistles though the tower giving the ice an unfair advantage. Two hundred and fifty feet up, two hours of sleep, the cold hand reaches out still unable to stop the fire.

"Earl I'm jacked", I say when we stop to shake the cramps out of our hands. "The wind is your friend", Earl replies.

The cars of our ground crew grow smaller, the fence surrounding the landing area looms menacing. Split into halfs, one burning, ravishing consuming all even itself. The other all that the first is not. Both able to achieve, one in a burst of heat, `destroy lest ye be destroyed'. The other slow, methodical, freezing ice cubes in a tray.

The violent one appears solid, physical, the other hovers, translucent, yet equally a part of me. Neither being good or bad. Why choose now to carry out your struggles? I need the synigism, so frail and vulnerable I feel without each. Needing both, not willing to accept one, the fire needs, the ice enjoys.

"Mike are you okay"? Earl asks. "Yeah!" How did he know? I haven't missed a step, no hesitation on the climb up. Earl is ten feet higher can he feel me? "Earl hold up", I climb to where Earl waits. "Earl, I don't want any part of this". "The wind is good, wait till you do a 2000 foot tower in 80 knot winds", he says. "I'm freaked, I don't know about penetrating the wind under canopy". Earls looks at me and smiles, "You never have to jump", he says. Think about uniting with the fire and just jump `que sera sera', will you two stop!, you'll knock us all off this tower. "Earl, I'm climbing down". "Okay" he says and continues to climb.

The merger, not able to distiguish when aware that it has happened. Not thinking about things you would think would cross your mind. Peer pressure so prevalent in the real world has no place here. The fire knows it can destroy the ice, knowing it too will be consumed. Definitely worth the loss, just not tonight.

Like so many of Mike’s friends of the time, Earl (whose last name I can’t recall) died playing the game. In Earl’s case, by flying a plane into the side of a mountain. Avoiding the natural death, as they'd say. Like Alf and like Scotty and like so many others I didn't meet.