There will be no order to the stories I relate to you. They will be added as I think of them and which one makes me laugh at that time. Yes, I will be "remembering" them. But, I hope they help you to choose to do rather than wish you had done. I welcome all stories of going beyond what you thought you could do, no matter your age now or then. Leave a comment and inspire...
I don't know what started the conversation. But, somewhere in there my friend, Bev, and I were told we couldn't do it. What is it? Take a boat out on a lake and manage to not kill ourselves or an innocent bystander. What is so hard about that? Well, neither of us had ever been the captain of a boat, ran a motor or even backed one into water. We had always been the first mates. You know... the ones who went along for the ride and had all of our fish, bait and tackle taken care of by either my husband or her children. I can see (now) why we were told we couldn't do it. I'm glad we didn't think it completely through when we were challenged.
I have to admit we cheated. My husband's boat was already hooked to his truck when we took off. Driving wasn't a big deal. I didn't look in the rear view mirror the entire way. We were relieved everything was still there when we arrived an hour later at my family's favorite lake. Another thing I should have thought about is that particular lake has narrow, steep roads leading back to the dock. Stopping at the bait shop was a bad idea too. I thought there was enough room to just do a big U-turn if I pulled to the far side of the lot. I was wrong. I spent approximately 20 minutes trying to get out of that damn place. Obviously 20 minutes is the grace period...a man knocked on the window and said "Please let me help.". Bev, doubled over with laughter in the passenger seat, pointed out that technically it wouldn't be cheating because we weren't actually at the water yet. I allowed our hero in shining white legs and cut-offs to point us in the right direction.
Now comes the official first test. I had to back the boat into the water. Bev hops out onto the dock ready to point me in the right direction as I back down the ramp. "That way..no, that way!" I look in the mirror to see WHICH way "that way" is and she's not pointing anywhere. So, up the ramp I go to try again. I slowly back down...That (hahaha) way...HAHAHA....that...hahaha...thump!" Ummm...thump:? I throw the truck in park and jump out to see if my friend needs help. Nope. She is fine. She is lying on the dock holding her stomach laughing like a fool. She is going to be of no assistance and is now an ex-friend. After three more tries I get the boat into the water while my ex-friend is still lying on the dock trying to breath between the gales of laughter.
HA! Take that you ex-friend, I did it without you! I unhook the boat and try to let out the rope holding it to the trailer. I try again...I try again. The handle is hitting the boat and not letting me "unreel" it. Another knight in cut-offs comes to the rescue. He asks if he can help. Again I don't feel that it is cheating, I just consider HIM my new friend. Well, until he puts the boat back up where it belongs and hooks it to the trailer. I explain that I was trying to put it IN the water. He looks at my ex-friend, at me, at the boat, at the new Chevy truck, then back at me. He asks, "Are you married?". I reply, "Yes.". He looks at everything again, then asks, "Does your husband know you have this truck and boat?" Really? I know it was going bad but, that bad? Sighing a yes he knows, I am now determined to get that damn boat in the water even if I have to drive the truck around the bottom of the lake. But, the now ex-hero, ex-friend man comes through and gets it in the water. Ex-friend Bev is now running for the outhouse. I hope there is a huge snake in there!
By the time Bev gets back out onto the dock I have the truck parked and I'm sitting in the place of honor at the motor. Bev drops to the dock on her hands and knees. What? She crawls her upper body into the boat, her butt straight up in the air and her knees still on the dock.
Me: Ummm...what are you doing?
Her: Getting in the boat.
Me: Ummm....okay.
5 minutes later...
Me: Are you getting in? Your butt is getting quite a bit of attention.
Bev: What? Who?
Me: The two groups of men waiting to take off.
Bev: Who? (and falls into the boat trying to see behind her)
Now laying in the bottom of the boat she accuses me of lying about the men. Now laying in the bottom of the boat I'm laughing so hard I can barely get out "Yes!". She's my best friend again.
Being my first time operating a boat motor, I wisely choose the trolling motor. Maybe later I'll graduate to the gas motor. For now I'm confident even I can figure out the trolling motor! We push off from the dock, I crank the motor to 3 (out of 5) and promptly ram the dock, in reverse. Okay, this is going to take more thought than I had...well...thought. I will give kudos to the crowd of men that actually were there at this time. I received more helpful advice than I could take in at one time. What finally stood out was that everything would be the reverse of what I believed it to be. If I wanted to go left, I turned the motor right, right to go left and the handle left / right for forward / reverse. I'm doing good, we're almost to the middle of the lake before I realize Bev has a death grip on the sides of the boat. Now what?
"Bev?" "Yes, Julie?" "Are you ok?" "Yes, why?" "You have a death grip on the boat." "Yes, I know." "Why?" "Because, I'm scared of boats." Now you have to wonder about a woman that is scared of boats getting into one with someone she knew had NEVER DRIVEN ONE BEFORE! I know I did. Her response to my questioning her about it..."I knew it would be an adventure!"
Things went fairly smooth for a while after that. There were three groups of men that would go by us every once in a while to make sure we were okay, but never interfered. One even offered us a whistle to blow if we had any trouble and they would come help immediately. We thanked them and decided to drop anchors where we were to do some fishing. I turned the motor off, dropped my anchor and... spun in circles... and more circles. Bev didn't realize she was supposed to drop her anchor too. I didn't realized I hadn't turned the motor completely off. Bev finally gets her anchor in and we start fishing. The helpful men got their reward. They had seen the whole thing and couldn't go yet as their driver was laughing to hard. They finally left with a laugh and a "remember the whistle". They did not have to add "if there is trouble or something like that for us to see again.". They are now officially ex-helpful men!
We did catch some fish. We did throw them back. Our challenge did not include gutting fish. YUCK! I only had to back up twice to get the trailer in the right spot to load the boat. And, best of all we made it home with everything we had left with. We were told we couldn't do it. We did it (with a minimum of cheating, which doesn't count because we COULD have completed everything). We laughed ourselves silly, tried something we never had before and met some awesome people. Best of all my husband had faith in me and gave me his new truck and boat to create an adventure!
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