Welcome to Beastly Tales. Each has a message, a moral. All are meant to have an element of humour. Naturally, any names included do not depict real folk but are included as part of the joke.

All rights reserved.
(As with Beastly Banter Beastly Tales is written and illustrated by Richard Hersel.)

Thank you for your following.
Richard Hersel

THE SKYDIVER

Algernon Brolley was fascinated with the parachute,
He was an adventurer considered most astute.
As a stout hearted fellow,
He wanted something expanding like an umbrella,
To allow descent safely from height,
Of course, a parachute was just right.
Fold the canopy up very precisely,
In a back pack to fit nicely,
With an opening device called a ripcord,
Anything sloppy to be firmly outlawed.
Two toggles for steering, as the ground is nearing,
Let us be bold and not fearing,
With firm concentration adhering,
How our heart does thump,
As from the aircraft we boldly jump.
For the ripcord delay, count four seconds away,
Don’t have feet of clay, Oh, what a day,
Your stomach does rumble,
As you turn and tumble,
You give a loud shout
And then the pilot chute pops out.
Pulling off the canopy sleeve,
Then the parachute itself does cleave,
As the wind fills it out with a loud bang,
And there you do with relief hang.

Your hands reach for the steering toggles,
As your heart beats, your mind boggles,
The ground rises to greet,
As you look between your feet,
For a bearing of just where to steer,
You’ve calmed your nerves, conquered your fear.
As you turn towards the drop zone.
You think out loud, hope I’m not accident prone.
The ground seems to quickly approach,
Landing, a subject we must broach,
Roll along your left side, no limbs left wide.
Your canopy has filled with wind inside.
And is starting to pull you along,
Grab hold of one side of the canopy ropes,
Hold them tight and pull with strong hopes.
Yes, this deflates the canopy, wind blown.
Over you shoulder, it’s thrown,
And so you walk back to base.
Elementary, but you surely feel like an Ace!

Such is the stuff of being a parachutist,
Lots of learning, information to get the gist.
But to obtain the rank of Skydiver,
You need to spend so much more than a fiver,
And, of course, practice can make perfect,
Experience counts and helps as you feel the effect,
Of falling at terminal velocity through the air.
But, perhaps sitting at home, to be quite fair
Is safer than doing what most would consider absurd,
Namely, flying through the air like a bird!