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.
No comments:
Post a Comment