LAKE ELSINORE -- Thomas Lockridge isn't the kind of guy to celebrate his 87th birthday with cake and ice cream.

The Oceanside resident has spent his retirement seeking adventure, from climbing 14,000-foot mountains and whitewater river rafting to taking weeklong bicycling trips and trekking through Nepal.

Jumping out of a plane at 12,000 feet? Just another day in the life.

Lockridge marked his birthday Saturday by fulfilling his lifelong dream of making a parachute jump, a desire first sparked during World War II, when his plane was shot down. Too low to bail out, he crash landed in a farm field in Austria.

"I've always wanted to make a parachute jump, and I finally got around to it," he said Saturday after successfully landing his tandem jump at Skydive Elsinore in Lake Elsinore. "It was fun."

Lockridge usually includes his family in his adventures, and Saturday was no exception. He paid for all six of his adult children to skydive along with him as birthday gifts. His children are in their 50s and early 60s.

"It took me a minute to catch my breath," said one of his daughters, Oceanside resident Janice Lockridge, after her jump. "Jumping out of the plane was like the worst roller-coaster drop multiplied by 100."

Janice Lockridge said it's not uncommon for her father to think up exciting ways for family members to spend time together or mark special occasions.

Last year, to mark his birthday, Thomas Lockridge and his son-in-law, Michael Peroni, went "barnstorming," or flying around in old-fashioned planes with pilots who engage in mock dogfights.

"I told him before the jump that I don't want him to give me any more birthday presents," joked Michael Peroni, who also was lassoed into skydiving Saturday.

"I'm worried about what his next trick is going to be," Peroni said. "His mind is probably already working on it."

Thomas Lockridge said that even at 87, he likes to stay active and have fun.

He retired in 1980 after a career as a construction worker and contractor. Soon after, he was climbing Mount Rainier and Mount Shasta.

An avid traveler, he's visited Europe three times, driven his motor home up to Alaska, and once spent three weeks trekking through the mountains of Nepal.

He and some of his children have also gone on weeklong cycling excursions, sleeping in hotels along the way. In 2000, the family went whitewater river rafting.

"He was jumping off rocks with us into the water," said his granddaughter, Andrea Dow, 29. "He's a lot of fun."

Thomas Lockridge said he doesn't do anything special to stay in shape.

"I try to exercise and eat the right foods. That's about it," he said.

He said that staying active at his age is just as much a mental trick as it is a physical one, that he "thinks young to stay young." He also shuns television for the most part.

"I don't watch television during the day, except during football season," he said. "And I watch very little at night."

He acknowledges that his adventures are far from the typical for someone his age, joking "I'm probably half-crazy."

Janice Lockridge said it was her father who brought the family together to skydive Saturday.

"He's the one egging us on, and we're like, OK, if our 87-year-old dad can do it, I guess we can do it," she said.

In all, nine family members jumped -- Thomas Lockridge, his six children, a daughter-in-law and a son-in-law.

"We are a close-knit family," Janice Lockridge said.

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