I know I’ve posted this before… but I still look back and smile when I think about this…
My quiet and reserved… middle school art and history teacher of a Dad LOVES fishing… he turns into a whole different person when he’s near a rod and tackle shop…
He decided to pass his love of fishing on to us… his 4 sons. (and his 1 daughter… my kid sis)
Rented the boat… got the gear and we set out for Lake Chelan. I was 16 and trying to hold it together… being out on the water was nice…
My 15 year old brother and my 5 year old kid sis got into a huge argument… my 15 year old brother picked up my sis and threw her overboard… (she knew how to swim and she was wearing a lifejacket)
She was so mad she began to swim away back to shore. My Dad called and coaxed and did all he could to get her come back to the boat… but she was swimming as fast as her little arms would go back to the shore… (we weren’t THAT far out)
Watching her swim away calling my other brother a poop head was so funny to me.
Eventually my Dad asked me to go get her… or at least swim with her to shore.
I had to swim… caught up to her… and when we got to shore… I had a few wet bills in my pocket… so we sat on the beach and ate ice cream. We got back on the boat when my Dad came in for lunch. My poor Dad looked so frazzled.
It’s been a long time since he’s been fishing with ALL of us kids at the same time.
He tired it a few years ago… pretty much the same results… you just can’t have 5 kids in a boat…
Two come to mind. One summer day I met a Mexican guy and we played soccer all day, there was a carnival at the park and they had set up a huge tent. When night came we sat on the field looking at the illuminated tent where people were partying just sharing stories and joking around. For some reason that moment always stuck with me, it was so peaceful and I remember feeling real good.
Then there was another summer where I traveled to the South of France and linked up with my girlfriend who was traveling there too, we spent the day swimming and diving off huge cliffs into the Mediterranean sea, that was a magic summer in 1998 because France won the World Cup, and we were in a really nice location… I still have two pics of that period!
I’d say the house parties with my high school class are some of the the best recent memories. Being a different person for everyone who saw me fall was great. Taking care of the puking drunk alumns of mine while being sober and well was fun.
i was sitting on the shore on sydney harbour…
i was watching three nicely dressed people get into their row boat/dingy from their yacht…
as the last person got in , it capsized.
i had a good day from there on
bad sith
bad sith !?!
take care
When I was 16, me and my friend spent the entire summer together partying, working out with weights and walking around all the surrounding neighborhoods. I would get up each morning, take a shower, eat breakfast, throw on a pair of cutoffs, grab a Frisbee and walk barefoot and shirtless down the street to his house.
We would smoke a couple joints and then head out. We would walk to the neighborhood park ( fondly called, “Narc Park”) and hang out with the stoners there and throw the Frisbee around or do our favorite pastime which was carving cool stuff into the wooden park benches with our pocket knives. Then after that we would go to the gated community near us and sneak into their clubhouse and play pool or Ping-Pong or hang out at the numerous swimming pools scattered around the premises.
If we had some pot we would smoke it out behind the club. I’m not encouraging anyone to smoke pot, it was fun but looking back, I would have had a better life without it. But anyway, that was our summer, we had better California tans than anybody else and we were strong and looked good.
We had no responsibilities. Of course other stuff happened too, (we drank a lot of beer) we weren’t the only two people in the world. We hung out with other people, and went other places.
That actually sounds peaceful. The train ran behind our house when I was growing up. We used to put pennies on the tracks or double headed nails and let the trains run over them. The pennies would come out flat and the nails would come out looking like Arabian Sicamers. (swords). Try it, you’ll see.
The summer when my dad, brother, and me went to the Don Cesar in St. Petersburg Florida. We flew in instead of driving, and dad let me pick out the rental car. It was a berry red Chevy Convertible, with an automatic top. We drove down the coast to the Keys, if I remember correctly.
Another one was the 2013 summer. I had just got on meds in January, so I was hot to trot. I danced to this song when it came on the radio:
Maybe the first time that I fished the Russian River in Alaska with my pop,brother,cousin,aunt and uncle.
My pop was/is always kinda a downer because he doesn’t like drinking/weed or anybody having fun but in retrospect he knew that the experience was a life changer for me and my bro.
So although my uncle brought a case of beer (like he always did) that summer was really fun.
A summer from college. Hobo the dog Light’n’. Big Piney. Gathering wild plants by the roadside. Ran my air conditioner all summer with the window open.
