Down, Down And Away!

I don't consider myself crazy,
but I suppose that is debatable.
—JUMPING JOE GERLACH

Outside his motel room the rain threatened to become sleet and the wind was strong enough to rattle the window. Fog had filled the valleys of the Catskills, making the drive to Monticello Raceway for the opening of the winter season all but impossible. The most avid racegoer would be foolish to attempt it; it was certainly not a night for a man to risk his life, even if he had a $3,500 guarantee. Although Jumping Joe Gerlach makes a living leaping from the tops of billboards, neon signs and department stores, from the eighth floors of apartment buildings and, most recently, from the gondolas of balloons 80 feet above the ground, he will perform only if the weather is reasonable. "I do not have a death wish," he says.

The afternoon had passed slowly for Gerlach, who spent part of it visiting Grossinger's hotel where, nearly a decade before, he had twice won what was billed as the World Professional Diving Championship. Because of the season—a week before the Christmas rush—the hotel was empty except for two elderly couples seated by the indoor swimming pool. So Gerlach, depressed and beginning to feel a touch of flu, returned to his motel. When the phone rang, he was half asleep, half watching a Gomer Pyle rerun. The call was from his balloonist, who announced that his truck had skidded into a guardrail somewhere in Connecticut. The balloon was undamaged, but it would be hours before he could resume the trip to Monticello. "I should have known that this week would be a disaster when I was ticketed for jaywalking," said Gerlach. "But I am an optimist. If I wasn't, I would have been killed long ago. Tomorrow the weather will clear and I'll do my act."

Jumping Joe calls his balloon act the Daredevil Sponge Plunge ("We added the 'daredevil' so people wouldn't think it was a janitorial service"), and he dramatically unveiled it last September during the halftime of a Lion-Eagle exhibition football game. After a band had concluded its show the 50,000 spectators at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia and a Sunday night national television audience estimated at 30 million saw a giant red, white and blue balloon ascend 80 feet above the 50-yard line. A slight man dressed in a white leather jump suit stood precariously on a wooden plank attached to the gondola and directed the placement of a foam rubber mattress—his landing pad. After several minutes of tension-building waving, the man appeared satisfied that the sponge was properly aligned and, at last, he raised his arms and stood on his toes. Helmetless, he left the plank in a swan dive and fell toward the field, landing on his back directly on target. He lay motionless for a moment, "checking myself out, making sure I'm alive."

Among those watching on television were Joe's wife Cheryl and their 5-year-old son Bradley, who asked, "Is Daddy dead?" Then Bradley saw his father bounce off the sponge, waving at the crowd. Even the football players, returning from the locker rooms, applauded. Less impressed by the performance was Cheryl, who greeted her husband when he returned home the next day by saying, "You must be out of your mind."

To appreciate the difficulty and danger of the act it is necessary to realize that the sponge measures 6 by 12 by 3� feet and from 80 feet up appears to be the size of a cigarette pack. The balloon sways in the air even when anchored by guy lines. "I must concentrate upon the alignment of the balloon with the sponge," Gerlach says. "Because I'm so high off the ground the slightest movement of the balloon is telescoped into feet. Only when I'm certain that the balloon and the sponge are correctly placed will I jump. It is an instinctive feeling that comes from experience and total concentration. So far I have been sure on each of my dives, but the day may come when the feeling isn't there. Then, because I'm not a fool, I will ignore the television cameras and the crowd and I'll chicken out."

Once Gerlach has left the gondola, there is the added hazard of velocity. He weighs 160 pounds and, at the end of the dive, he is traveling at 49 mph. "The dive lasts 2� seconds," he says. "After the first second I know whether or not I'll hit the sponge. Then I concentrate on the dive itself, making sure I land properly. Maybe the time will come when I will enjoy the sensation of the flight, when I have performed the act so many times it doesn't worry me anymore. But now the act is new [he has jumped from a balloon just 12 times], and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared."

Several Philadelphia Eagle officials who observed Gerlach before his half-time leap are convinced he shored up his courage with, at the very least, a large quantity of liquor. "He acted like a wild man on the sidelines," said one. "I'm sure he was hopped up on something." But Gerlach's strange behavior before his dive was the result of watching his balloonist, Bob (The Flying) Waligunda. Preoccupied by the wind currents in the stadium, Waligunda spent the first half of the game observing the movement of cigarette smoke and flags and tossing handfuls of paper into the air. Says Gerlach, "He usually throws grass, but the field was made of artificial turf. The more he worried about the wind, the more nervous I became. Then the band stayed on the field so long I wasn't sure there would be time for the act. I suppose I began to fidget."

But the Sponge Plunge went off perfectly, and during the following weeks everywhere he went Gerlach met people who had seen the telecast. "They couldn't tell me who won the game, but everyone remembered the nut who dived from the balloon. Each person said it was the best halftime show he had ever seen."

If ever a show needs rescripting, it is a football halftime. "How often can we be expected to listen to the theme music from Patton?" says Gerlach. "I think my act can, for the first time, keep spectators in their seats during halftimes. The balloon is a spectacle all by itself and my dive couldn't be more exciting. If I blow it, I die."