A Quiet Day On The Lake, Not!

Summer in Felton, Delaware meant swimming in Killen’s Pond. The area is a state park today but in the sixties Killen’s Pond was just a small rural lake surrounded by farm fields and forest with a big dirt parking lot and picnic area at one end. There was just room enough for a half dozen powerboats to pull water skiers single-file around the shore.

We didn’t have a boat of our own but Dad’s friend, Junior, had a wooden speedboat with an Evinrude twenty-five horsepower outboard motor, powerful enough to pull two skiers in tandem. I had learned to ski several summers earlier in Minnesota and considered myself pretty good on a single slalom.

Dad was a big man; not really fat but, after a decade and a half in long-haul trucks, he had that big belly and swayed back so many drivers develop after spending years behind the wheel. A love of beer on hot summer days only contributed to his girth. The summer sun made Dad hot, beer made him fearless and the water beckoned with a promise of cool relief until Dad could take it no longer and yelled out to Junior, “Bring the boat around, I’m going to ski!”

Dad had never skied in his life. I convinced him to ride in the boat just once to watch me demonstrate the basics; take off, maintain balance, cross the wake, swing out, drop the tow rope, dismount. As we made a circuit of the lake my misgiving grew. He ignored my example, instead laughing and talking with Junior as they finished another beer. I was skeptical at the end of the tow as I swung toward the beach and prepared to come in. Unconsciously, I made my usual dismount; racing toward the shore at high speed then leaning back suddenly to decelerate, stepping out of the skis and onto dry sand at the last moment. That must have been the one thing of which Dad took note, unfortunately.

We couldn’t find a safety vest large enough to fit him. “I don’t need that damned thing anyway,” he declared and settled back in the shallow water like I showed him while I held his ski tips above the surface and Junior eased the slack out of the rope.

“Hit it!” he yelled. There were a dozen false starts; some ending with a backward splash, others in a face-first watery explosion as the boat yanked him out of his skis. The last unsuccessful attempt nearly dragged the boat to a halt. He fell forward but kept a death-grip on the handle as he disappeared beneath the surface, plowing a giant wave before him until his head dug a crater into the sandy bottom.

“Give up,” I pleaded. He was not a quitter.

To everyone’s surprise he rose from the water almost gracefully on the next try and with a loud cowboy “YeeHaw” he and the boat disappeared from view behind a line of trees. It was as thrilled as he sounded. I could hear him laugh and holler above the roar of the motor as they followed the curve of the unseen bank. When they came again into view Dad was steady on his feet and looked like he had been skiing for years. Now I was proud. He was fearless, adventurous. How many other kid's dads would show such confidence and courage to try again and again, right there in front of everyone until they had achieved their goal and mastered a new sport? What a guy! What a dad!

Junior was lining up the boat on its approach for a dismount. I hoped Dad remembered how to cross the wake and swing out toward the shore. I saw him make a couple of tentative moves toward the swell of the wake as they quickly approached. Come on, I said under my breath, make your move.

Suddenly, he leaned to the right and dug the edge of both skis into the water. Like a rocket he shot up and over the wake and was airborne in an instant. “Too fast!” I shouted. “Oh shit!” I heard him yell.

Everyone who witnessed what happened next did not stop talking about it for the rest of the summer. In my imagination I still remember the scene in slow-motion detail.

It happened like this:

Dad flies twenty feet beyond the wake, arcing three feet over the surface, landing upright on his skis at thirty miles per hour only fifty feet from the onrushing shore.

“Oh my God!” my mother screams from somewhere behind me.

“Oh shit, oh shit!” Dad yells over and over, knowing that this can not end well.

“Lean back!” I shout across the water, praying he remembers how I leaned back to slow down before stepping out of my skis.

He is hurtling right at me. I have no choice but to step aside, knowing it is impossible for me to stop his momentum. A collision would mean broken bones for us both. He zooms past me heading straight for the beach.

“Lean back!” I shout one last time, but it is too late. His skis hit the slope of the beach in a sudden stop. Jumping out of the foot grips Dad hits the ground running. Pumping his arms and legs furiously he continues at an impossible pace. For an instant it seems he can defy the limits of human performance and remain upright, but then ever so slowly he begins to lean further and further into the direction of his trajectory.

Knowing in his heart that the end is near he turns his head and thrusts out his arms, bracing for the fall.

He is beyond the beach now and approaching a line of trees. Directly in front of him stand a pair of large maple, their trunks separated by less than two feet of space. Dad aims for the space between then and hurls himself to the ground like a runner stealing home plate. He slides through the narrow opening and then beyond, now heading for the parking lot, his speed diminished only a little.

“Oh my God!” Mother still screams. Dad has fallen silent except for the sound of flesh scraping gravel. I run in his direction, wanting to be there when he finally skids to a halt.

From the corner of my eye I see a car moving across the parking lot on an intersecting course. Dad hurtles into the path of the vehicle, throwing up a cloud of dust as the driver stabs desparately at the brake pedal.

I can’t look. Oh sweet God in heaven, please don’t let this happen!

Time seems to slow to a stop and hang there for just a moment. Then the world slowly began to turn once again on its axis.

Mother stopped screaming. I opened my eyes to see Dad lying motionless in front of the front bumper. Thankfully, the driver had managed to stop just in time.

Slowly, Dad rolled over and sat up, his chest and stomach scraped nearly raw. Strangers reached him first and helped him struggle to his feet. Mother and I joined him and together we walked painfully back to the lake to rinse off the dust and gravel. Eventually, Dad broke the silence.

“Well,” he said, “that was fun. But, I don’t think I'll be water skiing again for a little while."

Thankfully, he never did.