You’re never too old to achieve your dreams-or even break records. A 104-year-old woman named Dorothy Hoffner is such an example. She has just become the oldest person to skydive (跳伞), and she had the time of her life doing it. After touching ground following her jump with a US instructor, she proudly said, “Age is just a number.”

Hoffner took to the skies of Northern Illinois with the help of Skydive Chicago, making her way to the town of Ottawa for the jump. For all the excitement, this wasn’t her first time jumping out of the plane. Hoffner’s first skydiving took place a few years ago, when she was 100. Although back then the instructor helped push them out together, this time she insisted on leading the jump from 13,500 feet up in the air.

A video shared by Skydive Chicago shows Hoffner determinedly advancing towards the plane on her red walker (助行架) before being helped on board. Sitting among her fellow skydivers, she is all smiles as she waits for her turn. Once the door opens, the woman confidently jumps out of the plane head first.

Before Hoffner’s jump, the record for the oldest person to skydive belonged to 103-year-old Linnéa Ingegärd Larsson from Sweden, who set it in May 2022. Now, Skydive Chicago is requesting Guinness World Records to certify Hoffner’s jump as the new record.

As for Hoffner, she seems happy with having achieved this, describing the jump as an amazing experience. “It was wonderful up there. The whole thing was wonderful, and couldn’t have been better,” she says. Now that she has completed this achievement, she is now thinking of her next adventure. Since she is turning 105 in December, she is thinking of celebrating by riding a hot air balloon, saying, “I’ve never been in one of those.”

Peanuts to This

Proudly reading my words, I glanced around the room, only to find my classmates bearing big smiles on their faces and tears in their eyes. Confused, I glanced toward my stone-faced teacher. Having no choice, I slowly raised the report I had slaved over, hoping to hide myself. “What could be causing everyone to act this way?”

Quickly, I flashed back to the day Miss Lancelot gave me the task. This was the first real talk I received in my new school. It seemed simple: go on the Internet and find information about a man named George Washington. Since my idea of history came from an ancient teacher in my home country, I had never heard of that name before. As I searched the name of this fellow, it became obvious that there were two people having the same name who looked completely different! One invented hundreds of uses for peanuts, while the other led some sort of army across America. I stared at the screen, wondering which one my teacher meant. I called my grandfather for a golden piece of advice: flip (掷) a coin. Heads—the commander, and tails—the peanuts guy. Ah! Tails, my report would be about the great man who invented peanut butter, George Washington Carver.

But now, I was totally lost. Oh well, I lowered the paper and sat down at my desk, burning to find out what I had done wrong. As a classmate began his report, it all became clear, “My report is on George Washington, the man who started the American Revolution.” The whole world became quite! How could I know that she meant that George Washington?

Obviously, my grade was awful. Heartbroken but fearless, I decided to turn this around. I talked to Miss Lancelot, but she insisted: No re-dos; no new grade. I felt that the punishment was not justified, and I believed I should have a second chance. Consequently, I threw myself heartily into my work for the rest of the school year. Ten months later, that chance unfolded as I found myself sitting in the headmaster’s office with my grandfather, now having an entirely different conversation. I smiled and flashed back to the embarrassing moment at the beginning of the year as the headmaster informed me of my decision to skip the sixth grade. Justice is sweet!

One summer day, as I was heading to the teaching building, I heard someone call my name. I turned around and saw Philip, a counselor at our college, standing with another young man. Philip introduced me to him, Stephen, and reminded me that Stephen would be taking one of my classes.

Stephen looked at me. With a somewhat painful expression, he asked if my class was going to be hard and if he would be able to pass. I introduced all the things that he would be expected to learn. As we talked, I saw Stephen’s eyes getting big with fear.

I told him to do all of his assignments, and to hand them in on time. Rather than being overwhelmed(压倒) by all of the work, I told him the most successful students made a master calendar of all the assignments so they could plan their workload.

As the fall semester went on, I learned more of Stephen’s story. It had taken him longer to finish the assignments than most young people. Family members, including his mother, kept reminding him thathewasafailure.Buthekeptatitanddidn’ttakethemtoheart.Hetoldmethatbeforecomingto our college, no one believed he could manage it.

Stephen didn’t become an A student. However, he managed to pass most of his courses by being in class every day, turning in all of his assignments on time and breaking down his studying into bite-sized parts. By passing course after course, he began to gain a measure of self-confidence.

On his graduation day, he walked up to me, and said,“Thank you.”