BUNGEE JUMPING MADNESS COMES TO CAPE GIRARDEAU

You don't have to go to California to enjoy California-style lunacy.

That's because bungee jumping has come to Cape Girardeau.

St. Louis Bungy, the Midwest's oldest bungee business, will be at Big Al's nightclub, 610 S. Kingshighway, from 3 p.m. to midnight tonight and Saturday. The company also offered jumps Thursday at Big Al's.

It's not every day an opportunity comes along to plunge from a platform 125 feet in the air while attached to nothing but a giant rubber band. Of course, it's not every day that someone would seek such an opportunity, either.

But Al Bisher, owner of Big Al's, said Thursday that some 50 people already are signed up for the jumps and more are expected today and Saturday.

Two of those who took the plunge Thursday, Michelle Bridges and Lori Mohr, said they plan to repeat the feat. Both Bridges, of Granite City, and Mohr, of Springfield, Ill., are students at Southeast Missouri State University.

"I did it two times right in a row," said Bridges. "It was amazing. It's the scariest thing I've ever done. When your heels are on the edge of the bucket up there just before you dive, it's really scary.

"But once you jump, it's a big, natural high. It's amazing."

Mohr said she was extremely nervous while being raised to the top of the 125-foot crane in the small metal basket.

But once the "jumpmaster" said the word, she launched herself head first toward the ground. "It's so quick," Mohr said. "Once you do it and actually jump, it's over."

Although frightened while they stood at the platform, feet extended over the side of the cage and eyes fixed on the postage-stamp air mattress below, both Mohr and Bridges said the key was to avoid temptation to hesitate.

"Once you're up there and he opens the gate on the basket, you don't think, you just go," said Bridges. Mohr said, "You look down and think, `Just do it.'"

Gary Ross, an ex-Green Beret commander, founded St. Louis Bungy in September 1990.

"I just always wanted to have my own business, and I was on a canoe trip with a couple buddies and told them about it," Ross said Thursday. "They told me I was nuts, but six months later we made the first jump in Missouri."

The company started with hot-air balloon jumps near Wentzville. It continues to offer balloon jumps, but only in the summer when morning winds are calm. The rest of the year the company uses its 125-foot platform hoisted by a crane.

Now, 5,000 injury-free jumps after its inception, Ross said he's amazed that St. Louis Bungy continues to be popular. The company charges $45 per jump at Big Al's, or $35 with a reservation. Ankle harnesses are $10 extra.

The jump itself is a 95-foot freefall over an air bag inflated below. The jumper is secured in a body harness attached at the back.

Once in the platform high above the ground, few people refuse to make the jump. Only about a dozen have backed out, Ross said.

"It amazes me that everyone jumps," he said. "We went 300 jumpers before our first non-jumper.

"Half the people are shaking when they get up there, but it's really something that everyone gets up there and has the audacity to do it."

So how does an audacious newspaper reporter respond when Ross offers him a chance at bungee? "Sure," how else?

Perhaps the most disconcerting thing about the jump is the crane ride in the platform. As you go higher in the air, the pavement, grass and buildings below are transformed from terra firma into a potentially hideous "body brake."

Once at the full 125 feet, your jumpmaster opens the metal gate to the basket, gives a final equipment check and says, "3-2-1... Bungee."

In an instant, against your better judgment, you dive headlong toward the ground in an exhilarating free fall. Natural high, indeed. Just as you feel the bungee ropes begin to gather, you feel yourself rebounding skyward and realize the trip has just started.

After four or five good "bounces," the bungee jumper finally dangles, like a rag doll abused by an aggressive toddler, from the ropes and patiently waits to be lowered to the ground.

It's not until you again touch the ground that you fully believe Ross' assurances that bungee jumping is "perfectly safe."

"I've been doing this since September 1990, and the equipment won't fail," he said. "When there's three of us here, every one of us will check the hookups, and on a five-rope line, you could literally drop a Volkswagen off it."

Incidentally, the 205-pound reporter got the "Volkswagen" treatment a five-rope line.

Bisher said he hopes the event is popular this year, so he can bring it back next year. He and Claude "Nip" Kelley of Kelley Transportation Co. sponsored the three-day event.

"Nip and I thought we'd bring something to Cape no one else has seen here," Bisher said. "I wanted to give it a try, and after I got the idea, the very next week, Gary Ross contacted me."

Despite the current prominence of bungee jumping, Ross sees it as something that eventually will wane in popularity.

"Really, it's a fad," Ross said. "People will be jumping for another year or so before its starts to fade."

Reservations to jump can be made by calling Lori at the Sigma Sigma Sigma sorority 339-3393.