By Michael Stetz, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
To celebrate her 90th birthday Tuesday, Edna Baldwin dropped like a rock from 10,000 feet.
A tiny dot way up in the sky, she hit about 125 mph.
She fell ...
And fell ...
And fell ...
Then, the parachute blossomed.
She floated to earth, guided by Andy Rowell, owner of Pacific Coast Skydiving, who was her tandem partner.
"That was something else," Baldwin, the great-grandmother of 10, shouted when she landed near Brown Field in San Diego without breaking a nail.
"That was really great."
It was her first time jumping out of an airplane. Some people like to have a bit of bubbly or enjoy dinner and a movie to mark another year.
Not Baldwin.
She likes to get out and about. She’s gone parasailing, hang gliding, hot-air ballooning. She bowls and golfs. She works out at the gym three times a week for an hour at a time.
Who knew? Ninety is the new 30.
"I like to stay active," said Baldwin, who lives in the La Costa Glen retirement community in Carlsbad. "If you sit in a rocking chair, you fade away."
So she jumped. Her husband, Cary, who’s 94, watched safely from the ground. He flew planes during World War II. He did so at night, over the ocean, looking for enemy submarines.
Big shock: That was enough flying for him.
But talk about a loving, supportive, calm husband. He was there, watching his wife come rushing toward a hard, brown, spit of ground.
"I’m not worried," he said. "She’s in good hands.
Walter Bortz II, the author of several books on aging, including "Dare to be 100", had this reaction to Baldwin’s triumphant jump: "So what."
Um.
Sir, the woman just turned 90. Not 19.
"We’re resetting the norm," Bortz said of aging. "Before, when we hit 65, we were supposed to be dead. We’re challenging that."
Bortz, a clinical associate professor of medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine, is 80. He ran the Boston Marathon and wrote two books this year.
Look for the baby boomers, as they age, to really push the limits, he said.
"One hundred is our birthright," Bortz said.
Baldwin certainly seems to believe so. She’s still pushing it, no question.
"People think I’m crazy," she said.
Her son Larry got quite the shock when he called to wish her a happy birthday Tuesday. He phoned from his home in El Paso, Tex., to see if she had any big plans for the big day.
She did, she said. It had something to do with an airplane and a parachute.
"I didn’t want to tell him earlier," Baldwin said. "I didn’t want to worry him."
What a nice mom ...
Before the big moment, she didn’t appear nervous in the least. If anything, she seemed anxious to get going.
This is a woman who took part in Powder Puff derbies — transcontinental races between female pilots back in the 1940s and ’50s.
Originally from the Lansing, Mich., area, Baldwin came to San Diego with her first husband, a Marine, in 1942. He survived Iwo Jima, but not a bout with cancer. He died in 1977.
She later met Cary on a golf course (what, not while playing Bingo?) and they’ve been married for 27 years.
She figures she got lucky in the gene department when it comes to her long life. Two of her sisters lived to 93 and 94. Another sister is 85 and still flies an airplane.
So maybe this is a sibling rivalry.
Baldwin isn’t the oldest person that Rowell, the skydiving company’s owner, has taken for a jump.
That person was 98.
"But it’s rare," Rowell said of someone Baldwin’s age to skydive.
Baldwin paid $189 for the privilege. And here’s a bummer: She received no senior citizen discount. The company doesn’t offer one.
Maybe it will next time. Baldwin said she wants to come back.
"When I turn 100."