Gilligan's Lake

Becky, my best friend then at the age of thirteen and still at the age of forty-nine, made the sign up to go full throttle. I was ready too.  Twila punched it.  An old boat but it had some get-up-and-go.  It served its purpose.

Dad and mom were not rich but they always seemed to keep us in food and a little extra in fun.  They were on the beach at the campsite.  Twas the weekend, which meant camping at Lake Thunderbird, also known as Dirtybird because of the clay mud in the lake bed that gave it the red appearance and went home with you on your swimsuit.

The sun was shining.  Plenty of boats were out.  It was a nice weekend at the lake.  Becky and I were going in and out of the wake jumping back and forth.  The sky seemed to be getting darker in increments.  The wind picked up.  This meant the waves inside the wake of the boat and just out were getting picker.  We wove in and out giving each other high five’s.  After all we were in a rite of passage.  Thirteen is a special year for any person.  This is the year one sets out on the journey of learning how to be an adult by experimenting in the teenage years.

Finally the waves were too high and clouds too dark.  Rain poured down.  Where were our parents?  We had begged them to let us go skiing all day by ourselves, now we just wanted dad to be in the boat to take the lead.  He was up on shore drinking and having a great time.  Mom was on shore going crazy to the max worrying when she didn’t have to.  Mom would worry if we had a splinter in our finger.  Somewhere in the middle would be nice.

Twila was level headed enough but Becky and I were scared as could be.  The other person in the boat was Mike.  He thought himself a help but not really.  In the final minutes we looked like the opening to Gilligan’s Isle.  The part where it is raining and the Skipper and Gilligan are at the wheel; waves up to the boat tossing it around and rain coming down.  It took us about one and a half hours to make it back to camp when normally this was a five minute ride.

As soon as we pull up to shore the sun smiles out of the clouds.  The black out by the sun has vanished as if it were the end of the month and it were your bank account.  Pulling into shore with a boat is the wrong move if you are a kid.  That ends your turn, at least for a few hours up to four at the max.  So this is a storm that I will always remember because of the harsh change in weather and having to give up the boat right after learning how to ski on one ski.  Also, I remember getting to ski so much with my best friend.

When returned home from the weekend, we discovered there had been two active tornados in the area of the lake.  It should have made me respect tornados but it took much longer for it sink in to my stubborn brain.