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Sometimes in order to get outside yourself and shed the negative baggage weighing your life down, you literally have to get outside yourself. Participating in extreme sports works for some people, others embrace the Holy Spirit, and some people recharge their soul through a relationship with Nature.

Center City resident Joe Johnson found his redemption by jumping out of aircraft. He earned a living being a parachuting instructor and now Johnson has taken the next logical step, utilizing parachuting expertise to help others.

Johnson, who grew up in the Chisago Lakes Area, had chalked up some 2,000 parachute jumps by 2007 when he helped found the non-profit Free Fall (www.freefall.org.)

There's something about the unfettered exhilaration of parachuting and total reliance on your own inner abilities to control the experience, Johnson explained, that re-focused his admittedly damaged psyche. He said, "It taught me there's something better out there than holding things back."

Free Fall, as an organization, is just beginning to find its way and the sky's the limit. The group is mainly working with at-risk youth at this time. Recent tandem jumps were with troubled youth in Wantonwan County.

The concept of reaching out to at-risk youth came to Johnson about four years ago, when he took someone who hadn't ever jumped tandem parachuting as a birthday present. The experience was so uplifting for his initiate that he determined this was something worth sharing.

If you spotted the brightly-colored arching chutes riding the air currents over Celebration of Lakes, on the north end of North Center Lake, these were Johnson and friends. This was only the second time he'd been a part of this huge outdoor festival. He had 70 clients, took 30 aircraft flights and did eight tandem jumps.

He says, "It took me 28 years to find a job I love, I have never had a bad day at work. How many people can say that?"

Along with the Free Fall organization's work with troubled youth, Johnson also belongs to an air drop assist team that volunteers to deliver medical goods and other materials to emerging nations with tough terrain. The program is the remote Area medical Foundation or RAM. The RAM Volunteer Corps is dedicated to bringing free medical, dental eye care and veterinary aid to people in hard-to-reach locations. It was founded in 1985. Remote care has been made available in states like Tennessee and Kentucky as well as the continuing missions to Guyana.

Johnson said sometimes air parachute is the only feasible method of getting into highly remote areas. He'll head to the north coast of South America in late March, participating in a RAM mission to bring goods into Guyana, which could run into the middle of April.

The parachuters pay their own airfare and fund their own gear. RAM volunteers need to fly to Georgetown, Guyana on their own dime. There should be approximately two dentists, two optometrists, two MDs and support personnel like nurses, EMTs, and Johnson would be serving as a tandem skydiving instructor and doing whatever support may be needed on the ground. He said he was told to expect rough terrain and miles of hiking in-between villages. The temps will be around 100 degrees.

If you can help Johnson defray the trip expenses, please send donations to Joseph Johnson, 533 Nelson Court, Center City, MN 55012.

The website www.ramusa.org is also set up to donate to the organization in general.

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