June 23, 2020

Dropping a Ski

There’s not much to like about getting old, but one of the perks is I no longer do things in order to impress women. It is a pleasure. I say this to Caroline, my sister-in-law. She says I should still consider trimming my nose hair.

Anyway, this story is about a time back in the day when I cared about impressing women. It is about a woman named Connie Hillerman. It is a little bit about my friend Mike. And it is a little bit about friendship.

I haven’t thought about this story for a long time, and I only mention it because today my niece Rena asked me why I have never waterskied. I told her I used to waterski. She said, “I am 17 and have never seen you waterski.” Am sure she is right. At some point in my life, waterskiing fell into the ‘nothing good can come of this’ category. It has been safely and securely stowed in that category for many years. I would like to say I figured that out on my own.

But then there wouldn’t be a story to tell.

This picture is from when I was 16 or 17. I think it was taken either in Singapore or Malaysia. I love this picture because I am on one ski. It gives me a lot of flexibility in my storytelling.

I learned to waterski on the Changi River in Singapore on Saturday mornings with my friends Phil, Mike, and Paul. Phil was an expert waterskier. I think he could barefoot. Mike ‘borrowed’ his mom’s car. Paul ‘borrowed’ his mom’s credit card. Am quite sure none of us had a driver’s license. Then we rented a ski boat for a few hours. Phil taught us how to get up and then eventually how to drop a ski. I could do a shallow water beach start on one ski, but the deepwater single ski takeoff was always a challenge. I could do it one time in five and eventually gave up trying entirely. Especially since we were renting by the hour and wasting time trying to get up was not a good idea. I stuck to the drop—which I got pretty good at.

There was, to be honest, something a little magical about dropping a ski. You would put on the drop ski and leave it tight enough so it wouldn’t fly off when you got up on two but loose enough so you could easily slip out of it. You would ask the driver to make a short loop, get back on the straightaway in front of the dock or beach where you would drop the ski so it could be easily retrieved—put all your weight on the other ski. Then deftly slip out and shake off the drop ski, hover over the water for a few seconds, then carefully find the strap on the back of the remaining ski with your toes. Find your balance. And ta-da! You were now on one ski. I always found everything after that a bit anti-climactic. I could slalom, albeit with not much of a shoulder dip, through the wake well enough, but I was always pretty quick to touch my head, signalling I wanted to go back home. Unlike my nieces, I was never one to complain that my turn was too short.

There was always something exciting and even a little bit dangerous about those Saturday morning ski trips. I remember we got up early, met in a designated spot, drove for 45 minutes, skied for two hours, then breakfasted on roadside chilli crab eating quickly so we could get the car back before Mike’s mom woke up from her late night slumber. Am sure she knew but, if she did, she never let on. Still, there was just something about a trip with a stolen car which added to the salt of the water, the speed of the boat, and spiciness of the chilli crab.

I don’t really remember waterskiing after Singapore. If I did, it might have been a couple of times at the most. Then we began renting cottages in the summer. Up on Healey Lake in Muskoka. The cottage came with access to a 65 hp ski boat. We waterskied and took the kids on tube rides all summer. My brother and I became pretty good ski boat drivers. We also skied, but we turned into those waterski assholes who only ski when the lake was pristine. When it was glass. Other times, well, other times were for the other people. Those who didn’t know any better. The irony is neither of us were really any good. I know I never really got better. And to develop into a good skier you really had to have no fear.

I had a lot of fear.

Falling was not so fun.

Faceplants.

Skis hitting you in the head.

To get better, you had to take chances. And if you took chances, you would fall.

And falling was not so much fun.

So, we skied.

But we didn’t really have our hearts in it.

We both kinda remember the day when we decided that maybe waterskiing wasn't for us. We had gotten up early on a morning which maybe was a tiny bit too chilly to ski. We both had very short perfunctory runs. At one point, he turned to me and said, “Do you like this?” I said, “Not so much.” “Yeah,” he said. “Me neither.”

So we didn’t stop cold turkey. But it was no longer all that interesting. We still talked the talk but didn’t walk the walk.

Which is a perfectly good explanation and what I could have told my niece Rena but she is a smart cookie and would have figured there was more to the story. She would have wanted to hear about Connie Hillerman.

Connie Hillerman is a woman I used to have a thing for. If you have read any of my stories, you have already guessed she did not have a thing for me. That is fine. Connie Hillerman, truth be told, was not that great. She wore a lot of white t-shirts. I think it might have been the only thing she ever wore. Back in the day, a white t-shirt was generally good enough for me.

Connie Hillerman had a best friend with an unfortunate old-fashioned alliteration name—Mildred MacIntire. Mildred, ‘don’t call me Millie,’ was a real sweetheart, salt-of-the-earth, shirt-off-your-back kind of gal. I don’t know what she was like when she was young, but the burden of that name eventually wore her down and she became, in fact, she embodied, the name.

I’m not saying that was a bad thing.

I’m just saying.

Mildred MacIntire had a thing for my friend Mike.

I think you can see where this is going.

So when I suggested a Labor Day weekend getaway up at the Aston Resort on Lake Muskoka for the four of us, Connie Hillerman was looking out for her friend Mildred  MacIntire and Mike, well, Mike was looking out for me.

Now the thing I like best about Mike, apart from being a true and loyal friend, is that he is the epitome of a glass-half-full kind of guy. I too am a glass-half-full kind of guy, but my glass just happens to be half-full of arsenic. Mike has the uncanny ability to make the best of any situation. It is true it often involved a libation of sorts, but that did not take away from his very good disposition.

So you can imagine how desperate the scene was on late Sunday afternoon as we sunned ourselves on the dock, Connie Hillerman having exchanged her white t-shirt for a white bikini, when Mike turned to me and said, “It isn’t going very well.”

It was a bit of an understatement.

Connie Hillerman had adopted an attitude that could best be described as bored disdain.

She did not find me funny.

She did not find me charming.

She did not find, nor did she even try to look for, any redeeming qualities whatsoever.

Bored disdain.

Which is why Mike and I, and also Mildred MacIntire, were taken aback when Connie Hillerman popped up from her deck chair and exclaimed, “Wow, that is so fucking cool!”

We looked up to see what she was talking about. Her enthusiasm, which up to this point had been less than non-existent, made me think that maybe a whale had surfaced on the lake. But all I could see was a ski boat and water skiers.

I turned to cautiously ask her what she was talking about, but she was still looking out, enthralled, at the lake. I tried to formulate a question but Mildred MacIntire beat me to the punch.

“What,” she asked, “is so fucking cool?”

“Did you see how he dropped a ski?” said Connie Hillerman in a voice I would give up a month of Sundays to hear just once. “He was skiing on two skis and then he dropped one and continued on one. That is so fucking cool!”

I don’t really know all that much about Connie Hillerman outside of her penchant for white t-shirts. I can’t really say why she thought it was cool. Maybe she had never seen people waterskiing before. Maybe she had grown up in the desert and had not experienced boating and waterskiing. It’s not for me to say.

Now I have a lot of friends. They are, for the most part, good, kind-hearted people. But I think the vast majority would have turned to Connie Hillerman and told her, each in their own way, that dropping a ski was really considered almost the lowest echelon of water skiing skills. Most would have declared they had learned to drop a ski at the age of eight. That dropping a ski was no big whup.

My friend Mike, however, is not most people.

He turned to Connie Hillerman and said:

“My boy Ronnie can drop a ski.”

Now I don’t know if Connie Hillerman believed Mike. She knew he was my proverbial wingman. That he would probably do and say anything to get me a foot closer to her white t-shirts. So am not sure what was going through her head. All I know is she turned to me, looking at me for the first time that weekend and said, “Show me.”

Look, I’m not an idiot. I knew that dropping a ski was not going to suddenly transform me from a poor shmuck to a knight in dull armor. But I badly needed a win. Any win.

I couldn’t remember the last time I had skied, but I could drop a ski in my sleep. It was, despite what Connie Hillerman thought, really no big whup.

So I tightened my bathing suit and walked with what I hoped was my own version of bored disdain to the end of the pier where I gave my room number so they could charge me for the ski.

I took my place in line but it turned out I didn’t have to wait long. I was up next.

The kid driving the boat had zinc on his nose and a bronzed face. He looked like he was 12.

“Quick loop,” I said. “Am going to drop right in front.” I pointed to where Mike, Mildred MacIntire and Connie Hillerman were now standing, closer to the water’s edge.

The kid said, “White bikini?” Maybe he wasn’t 12 after all. I said, “Yup.” He said, “Okay.”

I bobbed in the water, the ill-fitting life jacket raising up to my neck. I realized I needed to pee but this probably wasn’t the time or place. For a split second, I worried about getting up on two skis, but that worry quickly evaporated. Next thing I was up, adjusting my bathing suit and preparing for the sharp turn.

The plan was to drop, make a few cuts, and call it a day. Piece of cake.

I stayed behind the wake as the boat made the turn and then began testing shifting my weight as we neared the dock.

I was not the least bit nervous.

The ski slipped off easily. I had set the tension up perfectly.

I heard a cheer from the bank.

I then brought my toe back in order to wedge it into the back strap.

This is where things got a little interesting.

You see, if you are skiing on two skis, you usually get a matched pair. But if your plan is to drop a ski, one of the skis is the slalom ski, which has a back strap for your second foot. The other ski, the drop ski, doesn’t have that strap.

But that isn’t the ski I had just dropped in front of Connie Hillerman and her white bikini. I had just dropped the slalom ski.

So when I reached back to place my free foot in the back strap, I could not find the back strap.

Because there was no back strap.

When I started this story, I said it was about Connie Hillerman, about my friend Mike, and a little bit about friendship. I should have added it was also about hubris.

Because when I couldn’t find the back strap, what I should have done is let go of the rope. It was the smart thing to do. It was the only thing to do. But although I couldn’t find the back strap, I did manage to place my foot rather comfortably and surprisingly easily on the back of the ski.

I was skiing on one ski.

I could do this.

Until the boat turned.

When the boat turned, my entire body turned with the boat. Well, my entire body except for the leg attached to the foot which wasn’t attached to the back strap. That went a different way.

Mike, who is a glass-half-full kind of guy, likes to remind me that when I made the splits in the water, resulting in a class-three groin pull, at least I did it out of sight of Connie Hillerman. At least that was some consolation.

You gotta love Mike.

So I tell Rena why I don’t waterski anymore. She laughs at all the right parts but mostly wants to know what happened to Connie Hillerman. I say, “I don’t know. We all lost touch.” She says, “That’s what Facebook is for.” It takes Rena two minutes to find her. She is still friends with Mildred MacIntire.

“She’s cute,” says Rena. “She’s really cute. Do you want to see?”

I say no. I don’t want to see.

“She’s divorced,” says Rena. “Three kids.”

She looks up at me and we have a staring contest. She knows she is going to win. She always wins.

“Okay. Hand me the phone,” I say.

Connie Hillerman still looks good. I scroll down. A lot of pictures of her in white t-shirts.

I get up and go to the bathroom in my brother’s bedroom. I open the medicine cabinet. It takes me a while but I finally find what I am looking for.

Nose hair trimmers.

The end.