Whataskier

 

When I arrived in Denver in the winter of 1964 I was asked “Do you ski?”

“Yeah – on melted snow!”

In 1955 I was enrolled in a Phys Ed class at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi.

Redickle-ous.

I enrolled in college to learn those arcane things that drive science and industry – and here I am in a PE class!

Oh, well — they didn’t ask me, and they were running things — so I complied with their absurd requirements.

The new highway from Portland to the Nueces Bay Causeway was built on a narrow elevated strip of sand dredged from a borrow pit between the newly constructed roadbed and the old Highway 35 — now named Sunset Drive.

The hole in the ground that was created was therefore long and narrow, and created what became known as Sunset Lake.

Its profile made it a natural for waterskiing   Conveniently located, sheltered from the wind-driven waves in the bay, it was long enough for the tow boat to pull a skier at speed ...

My Del Mar PE class met at Sunset Lake, The first day found a group of about six of us, plus the instructor gathered at a serviceable wooden pier, where the instructor, arriving early, had tied up a sixteen foot outboard motor boat. 

The class began with a lecture on water safety.

“Can all of you swim?”

General assent.

“Good. Then you know how to tread water.”

Sure

“Okay, then we’ll all go out to the middle of the lake, where it’s deepest, and you must all tread water for five minutes.”

Ferried to the center of the lake, we jumped out of the boat and faced the instructor, with her stopwatch.

I looked around at the others, and observed their efforts at keeping themselves afloat.  The water was precisely  six feet deep. I was six feet five inches tall. 

I stood there, casually watching the instructor watching me, until the requisite time had passed.

Then, pronounced “safe”, we began our ski training.

In spite of our inexperience there was only one accident.

One of the girls got her tow rope wrapped around her ankle  —  and then fell off her skis.

Luckily,  she was not injured.  

But she did set a new record for the hundred yard douche.