The Patriot Post® · On the Water

When I really think about it, so many of the perfect days I can remember had something to do with water. Oceans, lakes, rivers, streams, creeks, even swimming pools — I am drawn to them all.

Maybe it has something to do with growing up in the South and its often humid and sweltering summers. There was no better or more fun way for a kid to beat the heat than in the lake or pool. If we didn’t have that, it was lawn sprinklers to run through.

Maybe it was the burgeoning popularity of both scuba and skin diving as well as waterskiing that drove some of us to the water in the 1960s and ‘70s. “The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau” began airing on TV in 1968 when I was 11 years old, introducing Americans to fascinating new possibilities of exploration and adventure under the water instead of on it.

The 1960s saw the production of the first dedicated Tournament Ski boats and their signature small and flat wake for slalom skiing. First was Leo Bentz’s Ski Nautique, a fiberglass hull inboard craft, and then Rob Shirley’s MasterCraft boat company. Both allowed slalom skiers to push new limits. By 1972, waterskiing was an exhibition event at the Summer Olympics in Munich.

People were having fun on and in the water everywhere. It was depicted in print, on TV, and seemingly everywhere you looked around water. Whatever was happening, I just knew I needed to be a part of it in any way I could.

I suppose my love for the water began when I was about five years old, swimming at a relative’s pool with my father. He would say, “Now hold your breath and take a dive on the shark’s back.” He could have said “dolphin’s back,” I suppose, but if you knew my father, “shark” certainly was more appropriate than “dolphin”… So I would take a deep breath, jump on his back, and wrap my arms around his neck as he dove into the deep end of the pool. By the time I was seven years old, I could hold my breath underwater for nearly two minutes.

In 1972, I discovered waterskiing. My first steady girlfriend had friends with boats, and they all waterskied. A deep water start on one ski (slalom) is an incredibly steep learning curve, but some kind and patient soul whose name I have forgotten gave me something like 35 attempts in a row in a single afternoon that summer before I got the hang of it. I have been hooked for 52 years.

I competed on the swim team in high school. At 165 pounds, it made a lot more sense for me than getting my brains beat out playing football, although I soon discovered that the 400-meter freestyle is incredibly exhausting and painful.

I bodysurfed the waves of the Atlantic, skin-dived under its surface, waded chest-deep in rivers fly-fishing, bass-fished at night with my father, and waterskied at every opportunity.

Summers eventually became one endless party of waterskiing from dock to dock at friends’ homes on the water. The day often began on the early morning calm water and lasted until long after dark. If water was involved, I was all in.

In the 1980s, I began guiding whitewater rafting trips professionally and learned the art of “reading” heavy and fast water. I loved every minute of it and formed friendships that remain today. I still slalom waterskied at every opportunity.

By the mid-1980s, slalom waterskiing was sponsored by major corporations and was airing on Saturday afternoons on ABC’s “Wide World of Sports.” Professional skiers were making six-figure incomes and literally partying with rock stars. The addiction deepened.

Nostalgia is a funny thing. Some say, “It’s just living in the past.” Oxford Dictionary says it’s “the sentimental longing or affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.” All true. But if you can actually relive it, why not? Or, as another friend succinctly phrases the thought: “Find out what sucks, and then don’t do that.”

It’s the current century. My wife and I have acquired a classic 1988 Mastercraft Tournament ski boat from its original owner who went to UT Knoxville on a waterski scholarship back when such things existed. A good and lifelong friend has a cabin on the Tennessee River Gorge. He makes the best BLT sandwich on planet Earth for us hungry folk coming in from a morning of skiing. His cabin becomes the summer central meeting spot for many of the old gang that have been skiing, fishing, and generally hanging out on the water together since the 1970s.

Sometimes, we launch the boat on Friday, ski all day, find a protected cove, drop anchor, put on some classic rock, and sleep on the boat. On full moon nights, the mångata is a pathway to the cosmos. There is calm glass at daylight to ski. Living for three days on and in the water in nothing but board shorts surrounded by decades-long friends is the best.

One lazy July day, I anchored next to my friend’s cabin cruiser. He and I and his twin brother first skied together decades ago in 1977. Lying on the foredeck of his boat, he says to me, “Do you have any idea how lucky we are?” I respond, “Yeah, this is the perfect day.” He says, “There is that, but do you realize that we are actually living our teen years and those endless days on the water all over again?” “Far out — right?”

Indeed.

Hold fast, my friends, and never let escape the wonder and discovery of those perfect days of your youth — whatever and wherever they were.

Me? I’ll be on the water somewhere.

“The lake, she dances in the sun’s fond gaze, Swaying to rhythms of the dawn’s new phase. Silver mist adorning her silent morn, To twilight’s solace where stars are born.” —Gabriel Cruz