A Denim Moon

My brother-in-law Ricky and I take a fishing trip every year with his church men's group. Up until last year we generally had to catch a ride in someone else's boat or just fish from the bank since Rick's boat has been out of commission and I decided to give mine up due to discovering the old adage "a boat is just a hole in the lake you pour money into" is absolutely true.

But last year we had a boat. My brother, Mike, was gracious enough to lend us his. It was a beauty for fishing. Two live wells, automatic oil injector, and plenty of speed to get us to the prime fishing spots quickly after we woke up at the crack of noon each day. The first day we hit the lake it was fairly windy, and after a few hours on the water a storm began to roll in. The waves started getting really bad so we decided to head back to camp. We'd just caught a couple of fish so Rick decided to sit up on the bow and troll as I drove the boat slowly back to the dock about a half mile away.
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I was turning the boat this way and that to keep the waves from washing over the front and swamping us. Suddenly a large swell came toward us that I didn't think I could turn fast enough for. I panicked, gunning the motor to swing the boat around at the proper angle to the wave faster - but it was a wee bit too fast.

I remember it clearly. The lake seemed to drop away from the front of the boat, then the boat literally fell into the valley of the wave below. Ricky didn't stay with the boat. Instead he hovered in mid-air like Wile E. Coyote after running off a cliff. Then he began his decent, just as the next swell caught the bow of the boat and tossed it back toward the sky.

I saw the seat of Ricky's blue jeans eclipse the sun and grow larger and larger above and right in front of me as my life flashed through my mind. A split second later the world went dark blue with gold stitching as he crashed through the windshield and into my face.

Somehow he managed to stay in the boat and rolled off to the passenger side. Wave after wave crashed over the bow and drenched us both as I struggled to regain control of the boat and steer with little slivers of so-called "safety" glass embedded in the padding of the steering wheel, my hands, and my face. We had to cruise over to the bank and beach the boat there for a good hour while we waited for the wind and waves to die down and cleaned up enough to keep me from shredding the remaining skin off my hands.

My next trip on a fishing boat will be perfect. Because if it ain't a nice calm day with not even a breeze in the forecast I ain't steppin' off the dock!