My heart is rather full right now, by this I mean that I am beyond happy.

Roll back the clock to about the early 80's when I was about 10 years old. My uncle who is on the far left leaning against a brown car with his boat in tow stopped by my grandparent's house outside of Dallas, TX while we were visiting grandma and grandpa in order to take his favorite nephew and his family boating for the day. This was my first time boating and I had a blast but was equally a little scared. My uncle is/ was an engineer for the railroad and was very detailed on how to water ski, he must have had great confidence with me as he didn't tell me what to do if I didn't get up. Well the first time I tried, I did not get up and was never told not to let go of the tow handle. Well I got dragged a little before my 10 year old intuition came about and finally let go. The others in the picture are my brother in the red shirt, my uncle's father holding the newspaper and my father with his hands in his back pockets (it's a family trait that I'm trying not to do).



Fast forward to 2012, we had a cousin's reunion where we camped and boated for a long weekend and I had the privilege of towing my cousin's oldest daughter behind my boat, this was her first time skiing and was much more successful in getting up than I was at her age. She was so happy as was I.


Fast forward to last week when on my Facebook newsfeed I receive the two pictures of her from 2012 and 2018 skiing. It appears she is trying to take up a lot of slack in the line.


My uncle, her grandfather, gave me the itch to start boating at a tender age and am glad I can be a part of her boating adventure. As for my uncle, he is about 80 years old, living in senior housing with his bride of 58 years.

OH, what a great look back through time and a look at long standing traditions. My kids were brought up on boats and I'm looking forward to continuing that tradition with our grandkids.

Thanks for taking us along on your trip back to your younger days. (BTW, you and I both had auburn/red hair back then. Now mine's all grey!)

Great story. Thanks for sharing. I am sure we all had thoughts of our early boating experiences as we read. What a recall we have when prompted.

It is what boating is all about