I've Seen the London Bridge In the Middle of the Desert

    There is a small piece of Heaven that fell to earth a long time ago. I've been going there frequently since I was five years old. A beautiful lake in the middle of the Arizona desert and located on the Colorado river. Some day I'd like to die there. As a matter of fact I almost have, a few times.

    When I was about seven, my dad purchased this great new contraption called a Knee Board. Predecessor to the wake board and spawn of the water ski. About three feet long, two feet wide and made of plastic. The premise is simple, a person lays on their stomach on top of the board while holding a ski rope. As the boat takes off the rider pulls them self up on to their knees and straps in for a ride. Easy enough right? My dad thought so as well.

    I had seen my father and his friends do this several times that day. Only time knows whose brilliant idea it was to give me a go at it. Honestly looking back at it now, I wouldn't have thought it to be a bad idea either. Then again these are the same group of guys who found a parachute in a shed and stayed up all night drinking and tying ropes to create a parasail. But that's a story for another time.

    So when it came to be my turn, my mother put on my life vest and my father threw me off the boat. I swam to the board with the rope in my hand. Climbing on, I layed on my stomach. "HIT IT!" And we were off. Struggling to pull my forty pound body to my knees I let go of the rope. Several times I tried with no luck.

    It was then that my dad had the brilliant idea that if I couldn't get from point  A to B to C, then skip A. Common sense would tell most people that this is a bad idea. I think it is safe to say that my family crest most likely contains the words Bloga Idėja (google it, this is the interactive segment). So balancing on my knees my father strapped me in. All that I needed to do know was hold on. "HIT IT!"

    The boat sped off. The rush of adrenaline can only be expressed in a smile from ear to ear. Slowly I began to lean left and the board would move in that direction. This was amazing. Feeling invincible as most children do I decided I would dare to go outside the wake, and I did. I leaned right to head back into better water. Hitting the wake, the board caught air. As the board landed it bounced off the water and flipped with me on it.

    There I was, looking into a green abyss. Immediately my mind ran to fresh water man-eating sharks I knew didn't exist. Gripping the sides of the board I tried to rock myself back right side up. One minute seemed like a year as my lungs began to tighten. On the oxygen filled side of the world my father had pulled the boat around as my mother screamed like a banshee.

    Noticing i wasn't turning over my dad leapt into the water. Diving in, he swam to me in record time. Flipping the board and myself over like an elderly woman would lift a car to save a baby. Gasping for air as if it were my first time breathing I cried, but in a totally manly way. My father swam us back to the boat as my mom rolled up the rope, it was quite evident we were done for the day. Loading everything into the boat my mother squeezed the newly acquired life gas out of my burning lungs. One carefully chosen obscenity projected from my fathers mouth and echoed through the cove we were in.

    Apparently in the paternal instinct to save my life, my dad had failed to take off his Vuarnet sunglasses. These now retail for about $250 dollars, so you can see his frustration. This tends to be the moral of the story anytime it has been told through out the years. Don't misunderstand him, to this day i'm still the more valuable choice.

    It took about five years for me to get back on that floating death trap but I did. I won't lie, still to this day I don't fully strap myself in tightly. Now I can do 360's and 180's like nothing. Yea i'm bragging. The moral of this memory is simple. While I was submerged strapped into my floating coffin, panicking for my life, all I needed to do was unstrap myself and swim away. In moments of desperation the answer is sometimes the simplest one and is often forgot about.

Where my memories start

   Seeing as this is the first entry I figured I would start with my earliest memory. I can't say the events that follow will be in chronological order but this seems like a good place to start. I don't know exactly how old I was, but I can say with certainty it was before grade school.

   I'm assuming it was Christmas eve. It was at my parents house on DeCarmen in Colton. After being put to bed I escaped my cell of sheets, cleverly maneuvering the land mines of toys I neglected to put away like my mother had asked. Stealthy I cracked the door hoping to see the fat red man I had left cookies for.

   Panning from right to left I didn't see much. Kitchen, empty. Dining room, empty. But there in the living sitting, eating the bait I had left out were two figures. On the right of the couch a large mass of eighties hair with a feminine voice. This I presumed was my mother. Next to her I saw a man wrapping a large yellow and green box with writing. First I focused on what was left of the gift. YES! It was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle van! Something I had asked Santa for, and the man wrapping it was my dad. Next I watched him wrap what looked like a Nintendo cartridge.

   After what seemed like hours but was probably only about ten minutes, I navigated my way through the sharp objects blanketing my floor and climbed into bed. Knowing what my parents had gotten me for Christmas my mind wandered thinking of the greater things Santa's elves had been constructing for me.

   The next morning I stood at the edge of my parents bed like I often did. Staring without saying a word. Kind of like those creep twins from the Shining. Who knows how long I was there, all that is certain is it freaked my parents out. I just thought I was doing the polite thing by not waking them up. Apparently the force was strong with me as a youngling and my Jedi waking mind trick was well developed.

   Now that they were up and about I ran to the tree distributing gifts to their rightful owners. Like a tornado of paper I ripped through mine. I don't even remember what I got, probably the G.I. Joe underwear my mom would later haggle over with an elderly woman at our yard sale a decade later. There were two left. I had yet to see the greatest vehicle in existence or Nintendo game. My first thought was, they gave these to the poor kids! My mom had taken me in the past with her to an event where her work would give gifts to kids whose parents couldn't afford them. Pessimism had apparently settled early in my child psyche.

   Both were labeled from Santa. I looked at my parents confused and simi-angerly. I looked for an open seam and pulled with all my might at the small rectangle. It was then that I saw a Mad Max video game. I didn't really know who this fellow was or what he had done to obtain the fame of a video game but I was happy. Next was the big one.

   After shaking it, I noticed not much rattling. I flipped it over and saw a yellow box with a black and white bar code and continued to tear off the rest of the paper. There it was. The one and only Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle van! Screaming and raising the box triumphantly I ran around the small living room until it hit me. This was from Santa? The night before I saw my dad wrapping both these gifts. My toddler brain soon deduced that this meant only one of two things. One, my father was Santa Claus and I knew this couldn't be because he didn't have the build. Secondly, there was no Santa. It was then that I realized the truth.

   I kept up the charade of believing in "His Redness" for another decade. Why you ask? More presents, why else? I knew who they were really from. The name on the tag didn't mean it was given with any less love. Was I traumatized? No. Although, I guess it has left some bit of an impact in my life because I remember it so well. You may say that my parents lied to me, but that's not true. My parents wanted me to be a part of what every other kid experienced and for that I love them.