The Wonderful Terror of Boating with your Family

James L. Davis

The peaceful, oh so calming feeling of being on the water in your boat. Cut off from the hectic world on the shore you can float, blissfully lost in a sea of solitude.  This is what I love most about boating.

Just kidding.  What I love most about boating is the blood curdling screams that are ripped from the vocal cords of those fool enough to be pulled behind us on skis, a wakeboard or a tube.  Usually that fool is me because I believe I have a death wish that involves water.  Or if I do not, then my family has a death wish for me.

As I have pointed out before, making me scream like a school girl is one of my family’s favorite activities, and strapping me to any floatation device of your choosing and pulling me behind a boat at speeds only slightly slower than the speed of sound are sure to emit school girlish screams from my lips.  For that reason alone my children like to go boating. 

Of course the reason I am so quick to scream has little to do with my children and everything to do with my wife.  As a boat captain my wife is inherently evil and while I can’t prove it I firmly believe that while I am screaming behind the boat she is laughing hysterically, perhaps even demonically.

My wife has the ability to make our 1986 open bow boat perform like one of the cigarette boats drug smugglers use to outrun Coast Guard cutters.  When we go boating we almost always go intending to have a nice, peaceful day on the lake as a family.  A day where we can spend time together, enjoying each other’s company, bonding as a family.  That lasts until we actually get on the water and then it is time for someone to have a near death experience.

The first near death experience is jumping in the water in the first place.  It doesn’t matter which lake we visit, the water of the lake is always just below freezing when we jump into it, which of course means that we have to scream loudly and flail about as though we were either having a stroke or being eaten by a very large chub.

After we have all jumped into the lake and screamed for our allotted time, we will climb back into the boat and draw straws to see who will first face the Tube of Death.  We also have the Skis of Death and the Boogie Board of Death, but the Tube of Death is by far our favorite.  I tried the Skis of Death two years ago and while I did not actually approach death, I did do the splits before skipping across the lake, which is reason enough for me not to be in a hurry to try the Skis of Death again anytime soon.

The reason that we enjoy the Tube of Death the most is because it is a group activity.  The tube we have is made in the shape of a large, inflated, upside down triangle with handholds for three people.  We call these handholds the Handholds of Death, just in case you’re curious.

We will usually push the Tube of Death onto the water and I will climb on with one or two of my sons following.  My daughter usually won’t join us on the first run because girls, like women, are inherently smarter than boys and men.  My sons and I will give each other a goodbye nod and then we will motion to my wife that she may begin her death charge.

At this point my wife will become a demon and our boat will transform into a cigarette boat and we will begin screaming.  The screams will become louder as my wife begins to maneuver our boat, bouncing us in and out of the wake until we are skipping across the lake, almost but not quite taking flight as our tube flies to the starboard or port side of the boat, actually passing it on occasion I believe as my wife and daughter watch us scream with glowing red eyes (OK, I made that part up, their eyes don’t actually glow, but they are red and menacing looking).

At some point in time one of us will succumb to fear or fatigue and let go of the tube and slip into the water, which throws the tube off balance and the rest of us will fall off as well.

When you are traveling at that speed you tend to skip a couple of times in the water before you actually sink. 

The only problem there is my bottom is the thing that skips first and when my bottom skips across the water a couple of things happen, the worst of which is that my swimming trunks try to abandon me completely.  So far I have been able to catch my trunks around my ankles and not actually lose them in the lake.  But if there have been any reports of unusual or frightening sightings at any of the lakes in the area in the past couple of years, you have my sincere apology.

 

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

If We Could All Be So Honest

On June 14 I found a testament to honesty on the windshield of my car that brought me to tears.  I was the owner of Critter Country Fixin’s and this person used to be one of my customers.  He left this note on my car at my house; I think it is an example of how we all should be. It reads: “I used to eat at Critter Country Fixin’s back when you owned it. I used to get the one time salad bar and I thought it included soup also.  Later on I found out it didn’t.  I did it four or five times.  I would like you to accept this compensation and my apology.”

Inside the envelope he wrote this note on was $20. He signed his name, but I have not been able to find him.  If we could all be so honest, how much better would the world be?  I would like this customer to know how much his note meant to me.  I also want him to know that the soup was included in the price of the salad bar and I would like to have the opportunity to thank him for the inspiration he has been to me.

-Nina Peay
Castle Dale                                                   

 

What’s in it for Me?

When I very first applied for a job at the Green River Community Center I wanted to know, like any other potential employee, what’s in it for me? After my years of volunteering here however I have come to ask, what can I do for you, how can I help you, do you need a friend? I love that about the community center. At the end of the day you feel like what you did really matters, like you left a mark in the world, you made the difference in someone’s day. In society today so many people are in the quest for money and fame and in the end we leave someone behind.

All too often the people we leave behind are our kids. The community center makes a huge difference in the lives of kids. We do all sorts of programs from Informed Teens to our wonderful Summer School program. The community center provides growth not only for the kids but also for anyone who steps through the doors and reads to a young child, or helps put meals together for the seniors.

In the end what’s in it for me no longer matters. Because as much as you give, as hard as you work you will always get more in return. My time with the community center is both a time I will cherish and hold dear to my heart, and I look forward to many more years here watching it grow. If you have never been to the community center or if you have but haven’t been in a while or your unsure what our mission is I urge you to please come in and see, support your Green River Community Center and quit asking “what’s in it for me?” Ask instead “what’s in it for us?”

- Katie Colonna
Green River