Boating to School: A Memoir

My uncle once wrote of his childhood in Montana and told about a deadly blizzard that hit while the children were at the schoolhouse. For whatever reason, the adults wanted to move the children from the schoolhouse to the barn, and to do this they had to tie a rope to each child, so no one would be lost in the white blinding storm.

It reminds me of the cliché childhood tale told by many elders; familiar woes of being forced to tromp to and from school miles in a snow storm....usually without shoes.

My childhood trips to school never involved maneuvering through snow, yet my transportation was a bit unusual. For three years, from my sophomore year until high school graduation, I drove a boat to school. During most of those years, the boat I drove was a small red ski boat that I had named the Red Baron.

Our family moved to Lake Havasu in 1968. My parents had purchased a lake side resort (I use the term 'resort' lightly, it was a campground, trailer park and marina). The only access road was a 12 mile dirt road, winding precarious through Whipple Wash, leading to Parker Dam, California.

My sister drove me to school that first semester, and my father drove me to the bus stop the second year. At the Parker Dam bus stop I had to catch a bus to Parker, Arizona, which made the total one way trip over an hour and a half.

When a new high school opened my sophomore year, at Lake Havasu City, Arizona, my parents transferred me, and sent me off in a small motor boat.

Initially, Dad was supposed to drive me over in the boat each day. It was a 12 mile round trip, and would take about thirty minutes one way. On about the sixth day, Dad and I hit a storm on the way home. Just as we reached the five mile buoy leading into our marina, the engine stalled. Within seconds after the engine died the wind started to blow, and within minutes we were pushed into a distant cove and pelted vigorously with hail. Dad found humor in the situation, grabbed a life cushion to hold over his head, and yelled, "each man for himself!"

The storm obviously didn't shake him up, for by the next week or so I was captaining the boat alone, to and from school each day. During most of school year I was normally the only boater on the lake. We didn't have cell phones in those days, so I was really on my own. In fact, there were no phone lines into where we lived. My parents had an unreliable mobile phone, which frequently did not work.

In those days girls still had to wear dresses to school, which was not the best attire for traveling a lake in the winter months. To make matters worse, my boat had no windshield, making the winter trips doubly chilling.

One day our boat failed to start, and I was forced to take one of the small rental fishing boats. It was an aluminum boat, with a small 5 horse power engine that had to be manually pull started. There I stood, wearing my dress and nylons, pull starting the small engine. It took much longer to cross the lake that day. (Eventually the dress code changed, and girls were allowed to wear slacks to school.)

Another time, while docking the Red Baron at Lake Havasu City, my foot slipped and I fell half way into the lake. When I showed up at school that day, I received some strange looks from my classmates. One pant leg was soaking wet, the other was dry. Of course, I received a far more critical response from my classmates when I arrived at school after our dog was skunked. But, that is another story.

Once, when docked at Lake Havasu City, a storm broke up the boat slips and sent my small ski boat pounding furiously on the shore. The insistent pounding damaged the haul, causing a persistent leaking.

Each morning, before heading out on the lake, I would take a small pail in hand, and begin scooping out water. Once, when heading home one afternoon, I glanced down and was surprised to find water rippling at my feet, and quickly rising. I was in the middle of the lake, and there was no one in sight. The shoreline from Lake Havasu City and home is and was a desolate area, far from civilization.

I quickly slipped on my life jacket, set the throttle full-forward, and moved closer to the shoreline, trying to make it home. About two miles from home I spotted a boat of fishermen, anchored close to shore. I headed straight for the fisherman, the tip of my haul high in the air, speeding forward. They looked up, horrified to see this crazy teenage girl aiming her boat at theirs. When I reached them I shouted "I'm sinking", swerved to miss them, and beached the sinking craft on shore. The next week I was back in my boat.

Sometimes I was the one giving instead of seeking help. One afternoon, as I crossed the lake with a girlfriend, she spied a man in the middle of the frigid water, desperately holding onto the tip of a canoe. Apparently the man had installed a small motor onto his canoe, not especially a terrific idea. For, when the canoe tipped, it was impossible to right. We helped him out of his water, and transported him and his canoe to his campsite. He was camping alone, and had I not been making my routine trek across Havasu, I hate to think what might have happened to the poor unfortunate fellow.

Today my mother wonders how they ever sent me out in the sinkable Red Baron. Now she frets over things such as the possibility of exposure, and other dangers associated with a young teenage girl traveling alone on a desolate lake. Looking back, it may not have been the wisest choice. Yet, it was an adventure.