Thanks to Ray Henson and Margaret Rome Baltimore 410-530-2400 for a fabulously fun August contest! I loved remembering such fun times!
Growing up in Minnesota was pretty cool in that Minnesota has over 10,000 lakes. My family had a lake home and a home in town and we spent time between the two homes for years. As teenagers and young adults we spent A LOT of time at the lake in the summer, swimming, canoeing, skiing, sailing, playing volleyball AND - fishing and swimming off the pontoon boat. Yup, you heard that right. The teens would often would fish off one end of the pontoon and swim off the other. Now who knows if we actually caught any fish and if we did they were probably little sun fish.
The serious fishing was done in the fishing boat and/or the canoe. And that was a blast as somebody always seemed to know just where the fish were 'biting' as they called it. But it sure wasn't me who knew! We'd end up in some little tree infested area that also had a lot of mosquitos so you had to wear bug spray (which I hated the smell). But it was better than getting bitten to death by the MN state bird. That's a joke! I have lots of great memories living on the lake.
It was way to cold in the winter outside when the lake was frozen over! The 'guys' would fish out of those little huts on the frozen lake. That was something that never intrigued me. Why on earth would I sit in this little house for hours on end fishing. No thanks! Instead my Dad bought us kids some snowmobiles and we had a blast driving all around the lake with friends and family. We even wore those HUGE snowmobile suits along with a helmets. I always felt like that Michelin Guy who was so fat! But that was my Dad's rule. If you didn't follow the rules you lost your snowmobiling privilege. I don't recall me ever being stupid enough to do that!
I do recall vividly one particular time when my little brother and I took the boat out water skiing. He was driving the ski boat and I was skiing. Now grant you, we were all a bunch of showoffs on water skis. Thankfully my Dad's rule was wearing a life vest - always. We usually skied on one ski and were very good skiers (showoffs)!
That little Sh*T of a brother purposely tried to get me to drop in the water out a ways from the dock. I held on for quite awhile but that little sh*T kept trying and trying and he finally got me down. BUT he dropped me in the middle of August which means it was the 'dog days' of summer. Where he dropped me the plants were grown up to the top. I had to lay flat and scream for someone to come and get me. I was smart enough to know I could have easily gotten dragged under. What I didn't know is that my Dad was on the dock watching the whole thing. Holy smokes my little brother was in deep do da. As he should have been!! I miss that little sh*t to this day. My favorite fun brother! We always had a blast together whether it was boating, fishing, skiing or traveling or just hanging out!
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