One-Handed Water Skiing

My Dad always loved water skiing. He had a blue boat (the 'Powercat') that we'd take out to Bastrop Bayou, and Mom and Dad, family and friends would ski until everyone was exhausted, or until it got too dark to ski anymore. There are a handful of incidents that bear retelling...

First, it should be known that my father lost his left hand in an industrial accident while in his late thirties. There was quite a bit of stress and pain, many sleepless nights as a result, but after several surgeries to alleviate the pain from the injury, Dad never looked back. He went right back to doing all the things he used to do.

There was one time when he had his left forearm bandaged from surgery, and he had been told not to get it wet. Well, apparently, he took the advice quite seriously. He figured he'd better be extra-careful while water skiing!

My Mom remembers telling him constantly, "Hey, the doctor said for you not to get those bandages wet!" To which he replied, "They're not getting wet! See?" And he'd wave his bandaged stump at her from behind the boat, where he skied happily along.

At one point, the bandages came unraveled and fluttered off to land in the water, and Mom nearly lost her mind. Dad responded by saying "Mary...the doctor said not to get my stitches wet...the bandages don't matter." And he showed off his perfectly dry stitches.

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Another time, he was skiing along, and apparently thought that he would be the coolest of the cool if he could let go of the tow rope, ski up the bank, and sit in his lawnchair among the assembled family and friends. Mom could do it, so he figured that he could certainly pull it off as well. The plan was working fine until he neared the bank, and his ski got caught by something underwater, bringing it to an abrupt, dead stop. Dad, of course, did not stop, but did his best imitation of Superman as a result.

He told me, "It's funny how time slows down during something like that. I realized that I was headed straight for a bed of sharp oyster shells. I thought to myself, 'Dummy...you're about to put your nose down among them shells!' So I rolled over in the air and just got my back all scratched up. It hurt."

He decided not to try that particular stunt again. There were other stunts instead, but those are entirely different stories.

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And then there was the mullet. The fish, not the hairstyle. They can apparently be quite excitable. My Mom was driving the boat, and Dad was having tons of fun skiing on both skis for a change. Suddenly, a fish jumped out of the water, and smacked Dad right in the breadbasket. I can only imagine the sound he made. The wind had been completely knocked out of him, so he crouched down on his skiis like a downhill snowskier, and rode like that for awhile. Once he got his breath back, he stood up again, and skied on as though nothing had happened.

"Why didn't you just let go of the rope when it hit you?" I asked.

"Are you kidding? That dumb fish knocked the wind right out of me! I figured if I let go, I'd have drowned myself!"

Well, he didn't drown himself. As usual, he took the hit, endured, and just kept on rolling. Seems like he was always like that. Nothing fazed him much. Whatever happened, he would find a way to just keep moving forward.

So if a giant fish jumps out of the water and smacks the wind right out of you, just hunker down, hang on, and wait until you can stand up again. Thanks for the lesson, Dad.