Proverbial Parachutes

[Wilson Gray]

Isn't it also the case that every parachutist packs his own chute and
never uses a 'chute packed by anyone else? I.e., it's easy to imagine
a jumper whose ripcord didn't open his 'chute wishing that he had
pulled the ripcord on the opened 'chute packed by someone else, as he
plummets to his death. But, "[y]ou pull the ripcord on the parachute
that *you* packed."

-Wilson

On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 7:36 PM, George Thompson
<george.thompson at nyu.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
> Subject:      Proverbial Parachutes
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> “You pull the ripcord on the parachute you packed,” he said. “Not the parachute you wish you had packed.”
> NY Times, June 15, 2010, section A, p. 16, col. 5 (continuation of first page story "Efforts to Repel Gulf Spill Are Described as Chaotic")
>
> GAT
>
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
>
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--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

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