I
It happened 16 years agOf
and no one can say that Dav
id Rawls dldn»t give the home
folks something to rememlter
him by before he left New
Born for the West Coast and
his second hitch in Korea.
In fact, a visitor from Mars
could hardly have generated
more excitement on a peaceful
Sunday afternoon than did the
19-year old paratrooper when
he landed kerplunk in the front
yard of the Wallace Holton res
idence on Rhem Avenue.
Rawls missed power lines
along the busy throui^are by
Inches, and came to rest Just
three feet from a parked auto
mobile. Before home owners In
the neighborhood could catch
their breath he was pirited a-
way by the apprehensive ownej:
of the borrowed chute, who sped
to town from Simmons-Knott
Airport.
The daring young man, a pri
vate who had seen service with
the 82nd Airborne Division and
the Air Rangers, was In New
Bern on a delayed furlou^ be
fore reporting toCamp Stone-
man in California. Before
departure he wanted to impress
his 16-year old sweetheart.
"She thought I was kidding,"
said Rawls, "when I told her
I was going over to the airport,
borrow a chute, and make a
Jump over her house on the
Trent Pines Road. I managed
to get the chute, and hired a
pilot I didn’t even know to take
me up In his cub plane.”
Then, as the Impulsive
service man described it, the
best of plans went wrong. "Hie
wind velocity was elidit miles
an hour when we took off, but a
couple of seconds after I balled
out at 3,000 feet I realized the
wind was blowing southwest-
ward at a rate of 20 or 25
mUes an hour.”
What was his original inten
tion? "I wanted to land on
the golf course at theNewBern
Country Club, but the wind car
ried me into town. As I near
ed the ground I was hoping to
land in a drive way between
two houses. Instead I fell
In the front yard of one of the
houses. I didn’t get hurt ex
cept for a sprained knee that
Isn’t bothering me.’’
When asked If the exper
ience frl^ened him, Rawls
shrugged it off. "I’d like to do
it all over again,” he confess
ed. "1 get more excitement
out of Jumping than anything I
know of. Once when I was at
Fort Campbell down In Ken
tucky, I was doing some Jump
ing on my own and landed on
a hospital.”
The youthful paratrooper
said following his surprise
Jump here that his military rec
ord had him credited with about
80 Jumps, Including twocombat
ball outs In Korea. His Jumps
for pleasure while oft duty, he
told us, had upped the figure to
139.
His sweetheart was suffic
iently Impressed, but certainly
no more than flabbergastedNew
Bernians who aren’t accustom
ed to seeing a parachute de
scend on one of the town’s
heavily populated resldental
sections.
Yesterday was when you
could get the wrong telephone
number, and still strike up a
(Continued on page 8)
‘Nrm Smt-Q*raiifn pulilU Silirarg
The NEW BERN
I
PUBLItHID WIIKLY
THi HIAIIT OP
%
VOLUME 12
NEW BERN, N. C., FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24,1969
NUMBER 31
FUTURE TACKLE — Andy Underseth, four month old
son of Janice and William O. Underseth of 1018
Karen Drive tips the scales at better than 18 pounds.
Already he has the build of a Washington Redskin
or a Los Angeles Ram, and is growing bigger by the
minute. Keep him filled, which isn't easy, and he is a
happy and well behaved youngster who goes to bed
promptly and sleeps soundly. Andy eats anything
served him with the exception of orange juice. He
prefers water, and plenty of it. The stork hasn’t visited
the Underseths very often. Eight years ago he deliv
ered Annette, and no little girl could be prouder of a
baby brother. — Photo by Eunice Wray.