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Wow Rachael, you finally found him. Not the news we'd hoped for, but it does bring some closure. I didn't know Mitch that well. In fact, he only ever said 8 words to me. But they proved to be the most meaningful of my jumping career. It was 60 years ago, on October 17, 1965, that I saw Mitch, followed by Don Henderson, drive onto the dusty parking area of Arvin DZ. Jim Dann and I exchanged slow nods, knowing that something good was going to happen that day. Bob Buquor walked over to me, "Get up a load, and make sure Gary Young's on it." We knew the double-edged excitement of manifesting a Buquor camera-load. Primarily, you knew you were on it, but your other choices better be the "right" people. You had to make sure everyone was packed and then get the list to Pep Hill so she could organize the planes. A half hour later Mitch said, "Bob wants to talk to you." He walked me over to where Bob was sighting in his helmet-mounted Nikon still-camera. "Can you catch Gary?" So now the base was set. Bob and Gary had started jumping at the same DZ. However today, Bob failed to inform Gary of the exit order, so I had to "break the news." I used the assumptive approach. As we walked toward the planes, I talked about how Bill Newell would spot and Gary would crawl out first and hang from the far end of the strut of Walt Mercer's Howard. Then how I would be hanging next to Gary, looking at him, while Gary watched Bill in the door for the "GO" signal. Mitch and Bill Stage would follow. Gary let go with one hand, then the other, which created a "hitch" in the exit. I finally caught him at terminal. A few seconds later, I looked around and everybody was in. Then, what I had intended to be a rebel yell (yee-haw), came off like Gertie when she saw ET. You can see Brian Williams and Newell looking at me. Even Bob, who was on his back, snapping pics below us, remarked later that he could hear me. So we're walking through the weeds back to the packing tables when Mitch says to me, "Nice pin." Coming from Mitch Poteet, who was there from the beginnings of the discipline, those words were GOLD to me, and still are today. I know when Mitch first returned to jumping, he organized a weekend of "30-way" tries using the original "ring" formation and was in a couple of 26 or 27-ways. Then he went on to the Worlds. What a career!! It's a shame Rachael, that this news hasn't raised more response here but, like someone else noted, since the site was rescued by the OGs, nobody can find it using the old "Dropzone dot com." That turns up a totally different page with no helpful link to skydiveforum dot com/forums. I'm so glad that you were able to put your message up on your Facebook Star Crest pages where more people will see it. Fly Free Mitch Al Paradowski, SCR002

Nope. Poll taxes are as bad an idea for elections as they are for primaries. Independents should be able to vote in any primary they choose; that will help to reduce the massive polarization we see today. We need more independent voters to break the control the two-party system has over government.

We are saddened to recently learn of the passing of Mitch Poteet, one of the most highly respected "Big Way" Relative Work pioneers. He was in the first air-to-air 4, 5, 6 and 8-way star photographs taken by Bob Buquor at Arvin, CA. Mitch is SCR004, he preferred that format because his good friend, Don Henderson, always called himself "007." Mitch typically avoided the spotlight and quietly slipped away from us without much "fanfare." His family provides the following: "This is in memory of Mitch Poteet who 'flew' with the Arvin Good Guys in the mid-to-late '60s. He was drafted in 1967. He opted to join the Marines and was seriously wounded in Vietnam. He spent 6 months in the hospital recovering from serious stomach and body wounds when a mine blew up in front of him. He was also awarded two Purple Hearts. After he was released, Mitch worked on regaining his strength and began jumping again out of Perris, CA and then Elsinore, CA. He joined a team with another buddy, Al Krueger, who had lost an arm at the elbow, in Vietnam. Al's brother, Bud Krueger (RIP), told him he could still jump using his hook, and when he finally tried it, he was good at it. They formed a team calling it 'Captain Hook and the Sky Pirates.' They went on to win many awards and then a Gold medal in the 10-Way Speed Star competition at the first FAI World Championships of Relative Work in Warendorf, Germany in 1975 and then again in 1976 for the United States. The United States Air Force flew the team over. They competed against 13 other countries, winning the Gold. It was truly the thrill of their lives. Mitch was unofficially accepted as being the fastest flier in the speed-star community. He defied the belief in those days that flying fast was easier for the shorter jumpers. Mitch at 6'5" proved the naysayers wrong. He sometimes left the aircraft 10th out and entered the star as early as 7th in. This was confirmed by Chet Bennett, one of Mitch's fellow speed-star competitors. Chet believes Mitch will probably continue to hold that honor because speed-star competition has been replaced with sequential formation flying which allows the jumpers to exit the aircraft already gripped together. Mitch retired from jumping after he got home from the Worlds and started his own business. Mitch Poteet died January 8, 2021 and is survived by Jo Ann, his wife of 25 years." We welcome any stories, comments or corrections from those who knew, or knew of Mitch Poteet back in the day. Fly Free Mitch Rachael Newell-Machado World's First Photographed Four Man Star World's first four man star over Arvin California, March, 1964 Clockwise from top: Mitch Poteet, Don Henderson, Any Keech, and Lou Paproski Color Stills: Bob Buquor - courtesy of Don Henderson

Oh, it got read all right! It's just that Mitch Poteet was a skygod when I started, and still is. Blue skies, Mitch Wendy P.

I was abducted by aliens. They made me wash my hands, clean up my room, and sit up straight. Turns out it was the mothership. Wendy P.

Often taxpayer funds maintain the facilities that political parties use for free - like public halls and convention spaces. But overall there's far more private donations than public funding. Keeping independent voters from voting for people in either party's primary leads to further polarization and penalizes centrist candidates.

You.

Hannah Montana (and I learned something!)

Private organizations, sure. Public organizations - no.

There's also the tie in with the $230M that Trump has decided the Justice Department owes him (a dispute which he has declared he will be final arbiter of as the CiC of the DoJ) which he has said he 'might' donate to the ballroom project. But hang on - he's already raised the $250M budget from his tech bro oligarchs - so if he uses the $230M settlement where does that go? Trump playing the world's most obvious game of 3 card monte so that he can get the taxpayer to fund the ballroom while claiming he paid for it personally and walking away with a quarter billion dollar slush fund of pure profit is just a touch more likely than the idea that he gives a solitary shit about national security infrastructure.

As someone who’s been here longer, the vast majority of those forums were started because there was too much traffic in the old forums. It got crazy. That said, the vast majority of your suggestions are excellent. I’d have a separate forum category for DB Cooper; leave him all by himself. Wendy P.

A man walks out to the street and catches a taxi just going by. He gets into the taxi, and the cabbie says, "Perfect timing. You're just like Frank." Passenger: "Who?" Cabbie: "Frank Feldman. He's a guy who did everything right all the time. Like my coming along when you needed a cab, things happened like that to Frank Feldman every single time." Passenger: "There are always a few clouds over everybody." Cabbie: "Not Frank Feldman. He was a terrific athlete. He could have won the Grand-Slam at tennis. He could golf with the pros. He sang like an opera baritone and danced like a Broadway star and you should have heard him play the piano. He was an amazing guy." Passenger: "Sounds like he was really something special." Cabbie: "There's more. He had a memory like a computer. He remembered everybody's birthday. He knew all about wine, which foods to order and which fork to eat them with. He could fix anything. Not like me. I change a fuse, and the whole street blacks out. But Frank Feldman could do everything right.” Passenger: "Wow, what a guy!" Cabbie: "He always knew the quickest way to go in traffic and avoid traffic jams. Not like me, I always seem to get stuck in them. But Frank, he never made a mistake, and he really knew how to treat a woman and make her feel good. He would never answer her back even if she was in the wrong; and his clothing was always immaculate, shoes highly polished too. He was the perfect man! He never made a mistake. No one could ever measure up to Frank Feldman." Passenger: "How did you meet him?" Cabbie: "I never actually met Frank. He died and later I married his wife."