When I was a little kid, my parents decided it’d be a good idea to buy a boat and teach my brother and I to waterski. One of the biggest hurdles we had to overcome was where we were learning to ski.
At the time, we were living in Louisville, KY, and the nearest body of water was the Ohio River. There are really big barges that run up and down the Ohio River. And they make really big wakes.
I’ll never forget my first attempt at skiing. It’s not because I got up on the skis, but because of how much water I drank that day.
My parents coached me on how to get going: bend your knees, keep your skis straight and let the boat pull you out of the water. I was all set. Let’s get this party started.
I followed those instructions to a t. What they didn’t tell me to do was to let go if I fell. My dad most have dragged me for a hundred yards before I finally let go.
It took a while, but my brother and I finally learned how to ski. We even learned to slalom ski.
Then the kneeboarding craze hit andI had to get in on this.
We got a kneeboard and I started doing all of the little tricks: 360’s and sideslides mostly with a few jumps here and there. But one thing eluded me: getting enough air to do a flip. That is, unless my brother was driving the boat.
Scott loved pulling me on the kneeboard. Which essentially meant we were on the lake with some friends and he wanted to show off or get me killed. I’m not sure which.
He’d get me up on the board and in no time was making sharp turns and trying to churn up as much wake as possible for me. He’d then go into what I consider the death turn, because I don’t think I ever made it out of this turn without wiping out.
Scott would get me outside the wake and make a really sharp turn. But instead of making a u-turn to change direction, he would cut back over the old boat wake and create an enormous tsunami of a wake.
I was holding on for dear life at this point.
They said I’d literally fly higher than the boat. I don’t remember much except seeing the water coming up fast as I nosedived into the lake, peeling back my eyelids as I crashed and burned.
I’d finally surface and the first thing out of my brother’s mouth would be, “Wanna go again?”
“Sure,” I’d say. I think I was still in shock at this point. Why would I ever subject myself to this much torture? Either that or there was a short period of amnesia from my head impacting with the water.
I never managed to pull many tricks on a kneeboard, so I have a lot of respect for people that can. That includes people who can throw some awesome moves on a wakeboard.
When I was in Roanoke Rapids a few weeks ago, I got to meet world champion wakeboarder Adam Fields. He’s from the area and learned to wakeboard on Lake Gaston where his family owns a house. It’s also where he operates AF Wake, his wakeboarding school.
I took a ride with Adam and some of his friends as they took turns wakeboarding, pulling flips and soaring through the air with the greatest of ease, just like the daring young man on the flying trapeze.
Their acrobatics were amazing. I never could have done that on a kneeboard. Of course they didn’t have to worry about my brother driving the boat.
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