Father's Day

Happy Father's Day Everyone
I was just at Jean's blog and his Father's day post sent me down memory lane, an incident with my dad which also involved a boat. So the recovery report will have to wait a couple more days.

We were still living in Honolulu at the time and my family's thing was water skiing. We belonged to a Water Ski club and my Stepdad launched the ski boat every friday afternoon or first thing Saturday morning. He'd stay out there till Sunday afternoon regardless of whether we stayed the whole weekend. He loves spending time by the ocean. One Sunday afternoon we were getting the boat out of the water. It was at a former dive shop that he rented to house the boat that year. The ramp was slick with moss and the truck could only back down so far without getting stuck. It made getting the boat out a lot trickier and luckily many friends were on hand to help, there must have been 10-12 of us. Once they finally got it centered and situated on the trailer dad moved it out of the water and everyone unloaded all the gear and bags. Once it was empty Dad gave me the keys and told me to move it further forward. I was about 16 at the time, still awkward around cars with more than 4 cylinders. I got into that 76 Ranchero, turned the keys and proceeded to hit the gas pedal - with the shift on REVERSE! When I saw that I was moving backwards I hit the brake hard, except that my foot didn't leave the gas pedal. I had just floored the gas instead. A 76 Ranchero has a throaty, powerful V-8 and that thing roared to life sending everything flying backwards toward the water. There was shouting, screaming, people jumping out of the way. Finally I was able to hit the brake before the back wheel hit the water, trailer submerged and boat floating in the water.

After painstakingly going through the whole process again of getting the boat out, dad parks it at the same spot he had done originally and gives me the keys and tells me "Now do it again, correctly this time". Some folks were incredulous and others yelled their disapproval, mom included. I certainly didn't want to try again and was surprised at having been tasked to do it again. Dad waived them all off, I got in the car and got the job done correctly this time despite being shaken and embarrassed. I was shaken and embarrassed all the way home:)

Happy Father's Day Dad. Thank you for everything, especially second chances.