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Or take parachute jumping. About 100,000 sophisticates of the sport call it sky diving, and they have progressed (if that's the word) from two-man, free-fall wrestling matches, in which one tries to open the other's parachute before the other can open his, to six-or eight-man "hookups," in which all forms of hand-holding and baton-passing take place. Or take gliding, which its enthusiasts prefer to call "sailplaning." About 1,000 glider aircraft, costing between $2,500 and $10,000 apiece, are presently used by some 5,000 people. The glider pilot glories in his solitude and in the pitting of his personal skills against nature itself; if the breeze fails he may very well end up with a broken neck.
More Than Idealism
De Tocqueville was surely right in his definition of the adventurer as an individualist. Today an adventurer is quite likely to be a successfully self-made businessman or entrepreneur. Insofar as he desires to do for himself without the ever-helping hand of government, he is apt to be a political conservative. He may of course be a she, and female daredevils range from Alaska bush pilots to a 75-year-old tiger tamer. The adventurer need not be of high moral character. As Author William Bolitho once wrote, adventure's "adepts are rarely chaste, or merciful, or even law-abiding at all, and any moral peptonizing, or sugaring, takes out the interest, with the truth, of their lives."
The prospect of personal profit is not disqualifying. Thus, Sam Collins, 52, an ebullient Texan who knows his carats, has made millions as the world's first floating diamond miner, working off Southwest Africa; yet anyone who sees the glow of adventure in Collins' eyes as he rigs his own gear to follow one of his hired divers would realize that he would be doing the same thing if he were going down after clamshells. On the other hand, making money—which can be an adventure in itself—may spoil some men's excitement. Craig Breedlove, a former fireman from Costa Mesa, Calif., decided to win the title of "fastest human on wheels," and two years ago, he did just that, speeding over Bonneville's Salt Flats in a three-ton, three-wheeled jet car at a record 407 m.p.h. That was an adventure. But only a few weeks ago, Breedlove made the same run at an incredible 555 m.p.h.—and as he was the first to admit, the kicks have gone out of it all. For in the interim his speedcar-making company had become a successful corporation and he its president. Says his general manager, Stan Goldstein: "What used to be a hobby with us is now a big business. You know that first year that Craig got the record? It made him an old man." Breedlove is now 28.
Adventure lies not in the deed itself, but in the spirit of doing it. The little boy who overcomes his fears to explore the black unknown of a cave may be more the adventurer than the public figure who is flown halfway up a mountainside, then gets pushed and hauled to the peak by expert climbing companions. The youngster who travels to Mississippi or Alabama to participate in a civil rights demonstration may well be subjecting himself to danger; but it is less than adventure if done because it has become fashionable —or even if undertaken solely out of a sense of moral duty.