Friday, July 28, 2006

A little lake time was in order at the reunion

LAKEWOOD, New York - As the photo with today's blog attests, I wasn't the only one who took to the water at our class reunion.

Jim Lindell went tubing on Saturday while I was out trying to upend the sailboat on which I was racing in the Chautauqua Lake Yacht Club Regatta. At least Jim meant to get wet.

Growing up - and living right on the shore the lake - meant that any day the weather was even halfway decent it was time to drag out the waterskiis and find someone willing to pony up some money for gasoline so we could zoom around for hours.

Today, while out test-driving a new auto (Do not get me started on that fiasco!) I drove past the twin of the boat I owned as a teenager - a 14-foot MFG with a 50 HP Mercury hanging on the back. Was it a sign from the heavens? Was it a hallucination after seeing the sticker price on the cars I was test driving? I think the second hypothesis is the most likely.

The last time I was on water skis I tried to do one of the few tricks I ever mastered - putting the tow rope between my knees while skiing on two skis. I made it about 50 feet before I crashed, all captured in living color on the video camera. We used to fall a lot when we skied - part of the fun, I suppose. Now, well, it can hurt.

The new technology of tubing looks like it's a lot of fun, particularly with the speed of boats today. While we were content with 40 mph, even jetskis can hit 70 now - and pull a tube I've noticed.

Jim wasn't alone tubing (hard to drive and tube at the same time). Among the other suspects with him was Louie Acquisto, though no photos of Louie crashing about the waters of Lake Chautauqua have made it to me yet.

Louie on the water
Louis Acquisto enjoying the water

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