Aug 02 2011

Usually when I find a story like this, I’ll change the headline for my own benefit, but there really was no reason to this time, as it was absolutely perfect as is.
Most birthdays for Gary Lenzner consist of a dinner celebration with his extended family – on solid ground. So for his 85th, he decided to aim higher, much higher.
On Sunday morning, the spry Mission Viejo resident jumped out of a plane at 10,000 feet in the air, free-falling for about 40 seconds before landing safely by parachute on Nichol’s Field in Jamul, east of San Diego.
For Lenzner, a Holocaust survivor who escaped a World War II concentration camp, the experience was more than an adrenaline rush – it was a way to prove Adolf Hitler couldn’t put out his flame.
“I’d like to prove the son of a (expletive) didn’t succeed,” Lenzner said as he suited up with his grandson, Bryan Wasserman, who jumped with him. “Not only didn’t he succeed, I had two children, eight grandchildren and five great grandchildren, and now I’m jumping out of an airplane.”
I can just picture looking up from Hell, shaking his fist going “Damn youuu! I never wanted Jews to be able to skydive! This is so much worse than eternal damnation.”