All,
There are threats of tornados, hail and thunderstorms as I write this. I have a pulled hamstring and popped two Aleve a few hours ago. It has been ... the best Father's Day ever!
I had high expectations with the purchase of a 1991 American Skier ski boat, powered by a V-8 engine.
It was a day of perspective. Reevaluation. Relearning.
First, the boat. My dad had bought a 1994 Excel ski boat with a V-6 Volvo Penta engine when he turned 70. When he turned 80, he came to me and said, "You're going to have to care this boat now. It's too much for me. I'm not the driver I once was."
It was an inland lake ski boat, perfect for Houghton Lake and its 30,000 acres of water.
Here's one sunset at Houghton Lake, where Cory is looking out at the old ski boat that he and I loved.
That is where that boat spent most of its life, but for 10 years my dad kept that boat in a marina in Harrison Township. He kept it on Lake St. Clair, the lake I grew up on. That's a relatively huge body of water and it would be considered as such if it weren't bordered by two Great Lakes -- Lake Huron to the north and Lake Erie to the south. Lake St. Clair is about 30 miles wide and stretches from Marine City to the Gross Pointes before it dumps into the mouth of the Detroit River.
Lake St. Clair is relatively shallow. The water tends to be choppy. Many waves from several directions; not swells like you would get in the ocean or in the Great Lakes. Consequently, your head was on a swivel, constantly looking for that rogue wave that was going to swamp the boat. Waves from freighters, 80-foot cabin cruisers or super-fast cigarette boats. And you couldn't go wide open because slamming into those waves at speed would cause your passengers to complain loudly.
But on Houghton Lake, that boat would shine. You'd drive around looking for calm water and go skiing or tubing or kneeboarding. My kids grew up learning to do those things. One of my favorite pastimes. But the boat got abused in the winter. We would keep it at Houghton Lake Marina for $700 a season. Half the time, I don't think it was even shrink-wrapped (even though we paid for that service) or under a tarp. It just sat out in a field under all that snow and ice and cold. A lot of things broke down on it, including the gas gauge. Countless times, I ran out of gas and would have to be towed in. My kids never live that down. We used it twice a summer, if we were lucky.
When we bought our place on Byram Lake in 2014, I thought, finally, I am going to use that boat every weekend. No. My son was in Chicago or California, starting his own life. My daughter humored me for as long as she could, but she lost interest in tubing and skiing when she went away to college and started her career as a special education teacher. She would much rather float on a raft with my wife or sunbathe. And my wife developed acute sea sickness on an anniversary trip to Hawaii in 2010. She has to take Dramamine just to go out on our little lake of 130 acres.
So, that boat sat tied up to our dock while we went back to our main residence in Livonia during the work week. What I didn't know then is that my lake is populated by the dreaded wakeboard boats, driven by rude people (I think it is a prerequisite to buy one), that create waves like freighters and literally swamp your boat. And they have to drive within 50 feet of my dock. It must be a rule. They cost me thousands of dollars so I am a little bitter.
One weekend, I came back and my boat was flooded, under two feet of water. The battery was dead. The relays were dead. It took me forever to scoop out the water and run the bilge pump. My brother-in-law and nephew helped me replace the relays and battery and we got it running again, but that boat was never the same. What I didn't know was that the wood frame under the transom, seats and dashboard was all rotting from sitting under so much water. We invested in an $8,000 boat hoist to keep that boat from being swamped again. Grrr. Still makes me mad. Well, in early June, I learned that the Excel, nearly 30 years old, had bit the bullet. It was done. It would take $20,000 to repair the engine from worn out seals that were losing pressure when the metal heated up and from all the body work that had to be done.
It was time for a new boat. I had planned for this day. Looked forward to it. I told Deb I get one more boat in my life. She agreed, with a caveat. We had to be able to afford it.
Do you know how much a new Ski Nautique or a Master Craft ski boat costs? They start at $75,000 and go up to $200,000. We are not getting one of those!
My boat mechanic Gabe just happened to have a customer who was selling his ski boat because he was getting divorced. It's a 1991 American Skier powered by an inboard 350 block V-8 with a Holley carburetor. It's about 75 more horsepower than my previous boat and it goes 50 mph on the water. And it sounds great. Throaty, like those muscle cars of the 60s and 70s. I've had it up to 45 mph. It feels like your flying and it's a little bit scary to me because any little wave will make it bounce and feel unstable. I have been driving the same boat for nearly 30 years. This new one was going to take a little getting used to. Oh, and we got it for $12,500 with 680 engine hours. Gabe says he thinks he can squeeze another 10 years out of the boat.
Here's Drew and Erin in the back of our "new", old boat.
Needless to say, I had high expectations. My son, Drew, was coming in from Hermosa Beach, Calif for three days, mostly to attend his grandmother's 90th birthday. "Dad, trust me, you are going to get a full day of boating out of me." I don't know if Drew does it because he loves boating or he loves me. But he does it. Friday night, we took him out to dinner to celebrate him getting a new job. That was very nice. But he was jetlagged and went to bed early.
Saturday was my mother-in-law's party, an all-day affair that some 85 people attended. That was nice, especially for my mother-in-law and her three daughters.
Sunday was going to be my day! My father and my father-in-law both passed away; Doug in 2018 and my Dad in 2019. Last year was Covid. It didn't count. This was going to be the first Father's Day where I was the star of the show. (Wrong. So wrong. And it's just wrong to think like that, but I was going to have to learn that lesson yesterday.)
It started off with a 9 a.m. church service. I had forgotten how hard it is to get all 5 of us ready. Deb and I were up by 6:30 a.m. but we had to get Cory dressed an showered and make sure Erin and Drew were ready too. There was no time for breakfast, just a quick cup of coffee. That's okay, I thought. We will go out to breakfast after. It will be fun.
We got to church and we barely got in the door before we were greeted by so many of my friends. Pastor Scott. Jason, my chiropractor friend. Ed, the sweet old man I've written about. And Luke, the nurse I told you about. They hadn't met Drew before and they were rushing over to greet him. That moment made me so proud, so happy. The day could have ended there.
Breakfast in a small town on Father's Day after church is not my best idea. I wanted to take them to the Corner Bar, but it's a small place and it had a 45-minute wait. We drove to six other places before we returned to the Corner Bar. It was scrumptious. Everyone was happy. And full. We left at noon, but needed to let our bodies digest the big meal. By 1 p.m., my day on the water started.
Drew went kneeboarding and it felt great. 25-30 mph seems to be the optimum range. Then Drew offered to drive so I could ski. I let him take a few practice laps driving, just to get the hang of it. All good. I get in the water, skis on -- I am pumped for this moment. Father's Day! Yeah!. Drew slams it into gear and boat rockets ahead, pulling my hamstring from my bone. I could feel it. I drop the rope immediately and kick off the skis. I'm in pain and I know my day is done. I try twice more but either it hurts too much or I am too afraid that I am going to do significant damage to my hamstring. 50 years of skiing and this has never happened to me. I am getting old. Nobody else wants to go skiing or kneeboarding. My day on the water was over in about an hour.
I tried to hide my disappointment, but I was mad I sulked. I was feeling sorry for myself. Drew was reading a book. Deb, Cory and Erin were floating on my paddleboard. Cory was thrilled, splashing in the water, just as happy as can be. I sat in pain on my pontoon boat and watched.
Father's Day has never been about fathers really. My Dad and my father-in-law taught me that. It's about families and making your loved ones happy. But my selfish self had some more growing up to do yesterday afternoon.
The wind kicked up and I took Cory sailing. At least I could do that with a bad leg and Cory would express his sure joy as he draped his arms in the water from the Hobie Cat platform and splashed and giggled for the next 90 minutes. But then the wind died and the wakeboards swamped me. I was furious. Cory was delighted. One nice guy on a pontoon boat, maybe he could read my mind, came by and said, "Do you need a tow in?" I declined, humiliated. We would eventually drift in. And we did. It was time for me to make burgers. Deb was air frying corn on the cob. We had potato salad and deviled eggs. It was a wonderful meal, but I stewed as I looked at all the other families, skiing, tubing, wakeboarding. One guy went by on one of those hydrofoils I've written about -- a surfboard with a battery in the fin that extends down under water. He is literally floating two feet above the waves. So cool. Now that would be a father's day present, I thought. It's only $12,000 -- as much as my ski boat.
And then I saw something that changed my perspective immediately. It was my neighbor Chris and he had this huge smile on his face as he drove his new golf cart from his shore, up a steep hill and back to his house. It was the first time Chris had been down to the shore all summer. You see, Chris had a stroke this winter and can't use his right side. His leg or his right arm. He sold his pontoon boats. His therapy has come to an end. He has only been able to watch all summer from his deck off the back of his house. Sitting in a wheelchair with electrodes hooked up to his forearm to stimulate the nerves. Shock therapy.
From that moment on, my attitude was changed. What's wrong with me? So selfish. That wasn't my Dad or my father-in-law. Not in the least. That's not the Dad they taught me to be. It's not about me. It never will be. And that's for my own good.
My daughter said Grace at dinner. "And Lord, thank you for the Father you have given us." I hid my face and tried to cover up the tears and the emotion I felt just then. And I was ashamed at my selfishness. Dinner was great. My kids are great and so is my wife.
We capped off the day with Drew and Cory tubing together. It's the only way Cory will stay on the innertube. Drew has to lay on top of him or hold him on. Cory was laughing the entire time. Drew's eyes were bloodshot from all the spray Cory's hands kicked up. We did several laps as Erin spotted them and the sun set.
It was a good day. A great day. The best day a Father could ever wish for. And don't let me forget it. To all the fathers out there, I hope you had a similar day and were reminded of what's important.
Scott