You know that feeling when your intuition knows better, but you do it anyway? When Kerry and I were young parents we hardly ever went anywhere without our kids. Once in a while Mom would keep our kids and Kerry’s Mom would keep Lori and Kelly’s kids, so we could go somewhere, which would be the case this long awaited camping weekend. We had an old school bus that was fixed up into a camper and Kelly and Lori had a pop up tent camper. To make it a really special weekend, I asked Uncle Lawrence if we could borrow his boat to go fishing and surprised Kerry with an exuberant “guess what, I found us a boat for this weekend”! My next sentence was, “YOU DO KNOW HOW TO RUN A BOAT DON’T YOU”? Offended I even asked, he scoffed and retorted, “what’s to running a boat there’s two ******** levers”! OK, good I thought, he knows how to run a boat! I don’t swim, don’t like water, know nothing about boating, but DO love to fish! Still though, I didn’t know if I really believed him, but between him and Kelly I decided they must.
So we drove all the way to Lake Sacagawea, found a camping spot, launched the boat in the water, and got ready to hit the high seas! Lori was pregnant with Brook. She and I were stuffed in our life jackets, all padded up like a couple of blimps as we climbed in. Cormorants were circling around the water and I made a joke that buzzards were already waiting for us! I still had this leery feeling about Kerry running the boat, but didn’t dare say that. All four of us are in the boat now, Kerry at the wheel. Kerry turned the key and but it doesn’t start. I looked at Lori like great, here we sit bobbing in the water like stuffed sausages. An old timer with a beer in his hand, hollers from shore, “YOU GOT THE BATTERY HOOKED UP?” Kerry relays to Kelly, “is the battery hooked up?” Kelly climbs to the back of the boat and hooks up the battery. Kerry turned the key again. Urr urr urr…still not starting. The old timer from shore yells, “YOU GOT THE GAS LINE TURNED ON??!!” Kerry again relays to Kelly, “is our gas turned on?” Kelly, already in the back, checks, and nope... so he turns the gas on! Finally it starts! By then, I’m really convinced Kerry does not know what he’s doing, but scared or not, we are going to catch a fish in that boat! We slowly turned around in the boat and faced the water, Kerry in the drivers seat, and the rest of us fatties in back. Kerry put it in gear, and it was purring like a kitten... but a tiny weak kitten. All you could see was sky, cuz the boat just didn’t seem to have the power to get us level on the water.
Finally the nose or bow or whatever you call the front of the boat, comes down, and we are barely puttering out to sea. The waves are choppy and rough, and Kerry is going against them. Banging up and down in the boat, Lori looks at me signaling that she doesn’t know about this rough ride, being pregnant and all. And I was literally praying to myself by now that we get back in, as the shore looked further and further away. After we get out there a long ways, all of a sudden we are stopped. Mud is churning in the propeller. We are STUCK in the middle of the river! Kerry yells, “GOD*****, we are stuck on a sand bar, You guys come up front”. So we waddle like obedient penquins to the front, pregnant, fat and stuffed in a life jackets. He tells Kelly to get on the nose of the boat to lighten the weight in the back, and he pushes us off the sand bar with an oar!
Finally the nose or bow or whatever you call the front of the boat, comes down, and we are barely puttering out to sea. The waves are choppy and rough, and Kerry is going against them. Banging up and down in the boat, Lori looks at me signaling that she doesn’t know about this rough ride, being pregnant and all. And I was literally praying to myself by now that we get back in, as the shore looked further and further away. After we get out there a long ways, all of a sudden we are stopped. Mud is churning in the propeller. We are STUCK in the middle of the river! Kerry yells, “GOD*****, we are stuck on a sand bar, You guys come up front”. So we waddle like obedient penquins to the front, pregnant, fat and stuffed in a life jackets. He tells Kelly to get on the nose of the boat to lighten the weight in the back, and he pushes us off the sand bar with an oar!
Now I’m mad! I crabbed at Kerry, “I KNEW YOU DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO RUN THIS THING!” “ TAKE US GIRLS BACK TO SHORE UNTIL YOU FIGURE IT OUT! So we putt, putt, putted back, with Kerry complaining about how they could possibly water ski with this thing. Once back, Lori and I got out, and started stomping up to the bus, ready to park our butts safely in our camp chairs in the shade of the bus until and if, they figure it out. The old guy that was yelling out how to start the boat earlier, met us half way. He said, "what is going on"? I said to him, “there’s something wrong with the boat he can’t get any speed out of it”. He says and I quote, “WHATS WRONG WITH IT, IS THE DUMB SONOFABITCH THATS TRYING TO RUN IT!” He's on a mission now to show those twenty something year olds how run a boat! Beer in hand, he strides down to the boat and climbs in with Kerry and Kelly. In what seemed like one seamless step he takes over the drivers seat and they roar backwards so fast, they take in water in the boat! He spins the boat around and they roar out into the horizon, Kerry and Kelly's plaid flannel shirts disappearing in the distance.
Pretty soon they appear again, just skimming and skipping along the lake at high speed. Gloating about how I knew all along Kerry didn't know anything about a boat, I am happy to be safely back in my chair, and Lori is assessing if everything is alright with her pregnancy. We didn’t know if we should laugh, or be worried for the guys with this drunk "older skipper", lets just call him, in the drivers seat! Kelly later told about the guy saying to him as they are cruising along, “pull the plug” (in the bottom of the boat to get rid of the water that came in), and he didn’t know if he should do it or not but… he did, and the water got sucked right back into the lake! That old guy definitely knew what he was doing!
They came back after about thirty minutes and the guys came up to the bus loaded with some laughs, and still on an adrenaline high from that crazy ride! Kerry was explaining about some levers that had four speeds or something that he’d never seen. They were cackling now, about the guy telling Kelly to "pull...the...plug" and Kelly looking at Kerry with eyes as big as saucers, silently asking should I? We had lunch and went back out later and the water was calmer and we had fun. Now that Kerry knew how to go fast, fast it was. He was trolling so fast our bottom walkers were skimming along on top of the water, so we kind of decided that boating really isn’t Kerrys long suit.
Kerry and I eventually got our own boat but he never has had much patience with a bunch of people casting all around him and baiting hooks and keeping peoples lines out of the propeller! And I decided long ago I would rather wade out in the water put my chair down, feet in the water and peacefully fish from shore, than listen to him be crabby and complain about the cost of the gas. The boat story has been told and retold over the years at Kerry’s expense in our family, and it was funnier in hindsight than at the time thats for sure!
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