- Joined
- May 7, 2023
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- 2,242
I mean, I was only 55 and had no idea things would go like this that day, otherwise I would have tidied myself up a bit. I guess its up to the guys who put you in your suit now....
Its was just a normal day and we were going fishing. Got the sun screen applied, truck loaded and boat hooked up and headed for the lake. After splashing the boat we hit a few of our favorite spots and were getting skunked pretty bad. That's unusual for us on this lake, but the wife wanted to get some sun and we set out around noon so it really wasn't surprising. The recent storms, some of the worst we have had since Sandy dumped a ****load of rain on us and all that rain washed every damn thing into the lake and stirred it up.
We decided to wait to eat our sandwiches until we got to our favorite swimming spot so we could cool off in the water and find some shade to relax in and have a picnic. This lake was originally a sand and gravel quarry dating back to the 40s and has lots of sandy areas you can only get to by boat, nice and secluded and peaceful. The boat was running good and running full out it felt much cooler then the 90* the fish finder said it was and we were humming along at close to 30mph when I heard another boat blowing its horn.
That distracted me as it was off of my right shoulder and with a tiller steer I had to crane my neck to look and see where it was coming from. A guy in another boat at anchor was wailing on the horn and pointing off in front of me. Quite a distraction, and maybe if I hadn't heard this things would have been different, but I cant blame him. Him or anyone really.
Some days things just go wrong.
Looking in the direction he was indicating I saw another boat heeled over hard and turning in my direction. This boat was previously hidden by reeds grown up in an area where two bays of the lake come together to form a point. It kinda looks like you can see well enough, but I wasn't thinking like that this day, I just wanted to cool off.
So this boat, this big ass formula was coming at us and I veered off towards his stern. I knew this was going to be rough as we were close and his wake was high as he was turning hard just a second ago and was now correcting. Now I know boats and have been racing and piloting boats since I was young and I knew that chopping the throttle would make us swamp nose first, so I told the wife to hang on and we were going to go for the ride.
Buy the ticket, take the ride.
The guy piloting the other boat was pointing and yelling and all I could think is that he was ****** off or something, but I hadn't done anything wrong, he was the one acting like an ass........
My wife was against me getting a boat initially. We had one when we first got married, before buying our first house and we used to love to go fishing after work. I would load the cooler with beer and food, as I got off earlier and get the boat ready. She would come home and put on a bikini and one of those lil teaser skirts that just don't show you enough, and we would hit the lake, have a couple wobbly pops and fish and eat having a great time.
But now, she didn't want a boat. Too expensive, we don't have time, were supposed to be saving for.....
I scrimped and saved up some cash and went out and bought the shabbiest 14' boat you ever saw...... from a junkyard....... in Mannyunk, in south Philly, for $300. It was whole and had a trailer, but the seats had rotted out and it was filthy with broken glass from the junk yard. The trailer had rotted tires so I had to cart it home on my landscrape trailer. Once I got it home I had to hide it behind the shed in the woods until I could strip it down and put some tires/rims on it to make it presentable.....
Eventually she found it and we fixed it up. Built a right nice little race motor for it and we were happy.
So the guy in the boat that almost hit us is yelling and pointing, I'm just confused as hell but I have a bigger problem to deal with, and I hit the wake, that's when I saw the log.
Well, it was a log at one time. This was a timber from the old original dredge that was made out of wood from the 40s. The old dredge was beached in a cove sometime around 1965 and retired from use, and a newer more modern and efficient dredge put in its place. This is a man made lake and the first time I saw it I was three and it was 1972. My dad had heard about a new club you could join and gain access to the lake, camp and fish and go boating, first time the family saw this place we were sold. We camped and fished for 3 months every summer and it was the best childhood you could ever ask for.
Kids used to climb that old dredge and jump off and have parties and whatnot, but by the time I was old enough for this it was a derelict wreck in danger of falling down. Lately it was just wood and steel bolts jutting up out of the water that made for great fishing. The two main lakes that comprise the impound total somewhere around two square miles of water, and the club its self is another five square miles.
There's no way I would ever say man could improve on nature, but this was pretty close. It was always beautiful, but now in its maturity even more so. We saw a bald Eagle snatch a fish up out of the water that day, a beautiful sight to behold if it has to be one of your last. Never saw them back in the day.
Now as I said, it had rained hard and we had quite a storm the week before. I saw the timber too late due to it being waterlogged and the wake from the other boat making it blend in with the shadows of its wake. The guy in the other boat saw it in time and that's why we crossed paths that day. Him trying his level best to not hit it and protect the people in his boat is what sent him into my path is all, cant blame him either.
Some days things just go wrong.
When we hit the wake the boat did just what I knew it would, when we hit the timber is when things went south. The boat jumped into the air and heeled over to port tossing my wife out and clear of the boat. Me being in the back stayed planted until the nose of the boat came down and stuffed into the water effectively stopping the boat dead.
I remember flying through the air and getting that adrenaline jolt, I knew this was going to hurt.
But it didn't. I registered the impact and knew something terrible happened to me, but there was no pain. I was just floating looking down into a haze of reddish water and realized I couldn't move. I wasn't sad or angry, just shocked. I tried to swim and right myself, but nothing worked. Floating there I realized I was going to die, and being this was the only thing I could do, that's what I did.
After a bit I could see people around and they were helping my wife and she was crying. there was this fat guy there laying face up on the beach not moving and I realized that he was me. My first thought was damn, you really let yourself go. Then I realized how ridiculous this was, too late now. I felt bad for my wife and the people who had to witness all this.
The coroners report stated blunt force trauma, but we know this is short for a broken neck.
Some days things just go wrong.
I felt bad for the rescuers who had to get me off the beach and the driver of the other boat. The investigation found him 70% at fault and since he had had a few beers, they were going to try to charge him with manslaughter. My wife and family intervened as best they could, his family was with him and his kids witnessed this and had been through enough.
I'm not happy now, but I'm not sad either. I'm not hot and I'm not cold. I cant touch anything and the wind if it is hot or cold blows right through me and I don't feel it. I'm not mad and I blame no one, I'm contented I guess is the proper way to put it.
I've always loved this place and I think Ill stay here. I'm free to roam and can do as I please. Its not a horrible way to be, but I guess the one thing I do feel is lonely. Not when there's no one around, but when I see people having fun.
When there's no one around there's always the wildlife. I try to get close to them, the ducks, geese and cormorants, but they always sense something is wrong and move away just out if reach. The fish are the easiest to get close to, turtles too.
If I could touch things I would steal a fishing pole and pass my time fishing. I'm not a thief, I hate a thief, but what harm is there now? If I stole someone's fishing pole they would have one wild story to tell, I think that is a fair trade, don't you.
When there are people around I feel like getting up to some mischief, but I don't. It wouldn't be nice and it wouldn't be fair to mess with them. Even if it would be fun. Ill just have to be content looking at the girls in bikinis and watching others have fun.
I gotta go now. Don't know why or where to, but I just think its time to move on a bit.
See you when you get here.
And you will someday get here.
Its was just a normal day and we were going fishing. Got the sun screen applied, truck loaded and boat hooked up and headed for the lake. After splashing the boat we hit a few of our favorite spots and were getting skunked pretty bad. That's unusual for us on this lake, but the wife wanted to get some sun and we set out around noon so it really wasn't surprising. The recent storms, some of the worst we have had since Sandy dumped a ****load of rain on us and all that rain washed every damn thing into the lake and stirred it up.
We decided to wait to eat our sandwiches until we got to our favorite swimming spot so we could cool off in the water and find some shade to relax in and have a picnic. This lake was originally a sand and gravel quarry dating back to the 40s and has lots of sandy areas you can only get to by boat, nice and secluded and peaceful. The boat was running good and running full out it felt much cooler then the 90* the fish finder said it was and we were humming along at close to 30mph when I heard another boat blowing its horn.
That distracted me as it was off of my right shoulder and with a tiller steer I had to crane my neck to look and see where it was coming from. A guy in another boat at anchor was wailing on the horn and pointing off in front of me. Quite a distraction, and maybe if I hadn't heard this things would have been different, but I cant blame him. Him or anyone really.
Some days things just go wrong.
Looking in the direction he was indicating I saw another boat heeled over hard and turning in my direction. This boat was previously hidden by reeds grown up in an area where two bays of the lake come together to form a point. It kinda looks like you can see well enough, but I wasn't thinking like that this day, I just wanted to cool off.
So this boat, this big ass formula was coming at us and I veered off towards his stern. I knew this was going to be rough as we were close and his wake was high as he was turning hard just a second ago and was now correcting. Now I know boats and have been racing and piloting boats since I was young and I knew that chopping the throttle would make us swamp nose first, so I told the wife to hang on and we were going to go for the ride.
Buy the ticket, take the ride.
The guy piloting the other boat was pointing and yelling and all I could think is that he was ****** off or something, but I hadn't done anything wrong, he was the one acting like an ass........
My wife was against me getting a boat initially. We had one when we first got married, before buying our first house and we used to love to go fishing after work. I would load the cooler with beer and food, as I got off earlier and get the boat ready. She would come home and put on a bikini and one of those lil teaser skirts that just don't show you enough, and we would hit the lake, have a couple wobbly pops and fish and eat having a great time.
But now, she didn't want a boat. Too expensive, we don't have time, were supposed to be saving for.....
I scrimped and saved up some cash and went out and bought the shabbiest 14' boat you ever saw...... from a junkyard....... in Mannyunk, in south Philly, for $300. It was whole and had a trailer, but the seats had rotted out and it was filthy with broken glass from the junk yard. The trailer had rotted tires so I had to cart it home on my landscrape trailer. Once I got it home I had to hide it behind the shed in the woods until I could strip it down and put some tires/rims on it to make it presentable.....
Eventually she found it and we fixed it up. Built a right nice little race motor for it and we were happy.
So the guy in the boat that almost hit us is yelling and pointing, I'm just confused as hell but I have a bigger problem to deal with, and I hit the wake, that's when I saw the log.
Well, it was a log at one time. This was a timber from the old original dredge that was made out of wood from the 40s. The old dredge was beached in a cove sometime around 1965 and retired from use, and a newer more modern and efficient dredge put in its place. This is a man made lake and the first time I saw it I was three and it was 1972. My dad had heard about a new club you could join and gain access to the lake, camp and fish and go boating, first time the family saw this place we were sold. We camped and fished for 3 months every summer and it was the best childhood you could ever ask for.
Kids used to climb that old dredge and jump off and have parties and whatnot, but by the time I was old enough for this it was a derelict wreck in danger of falling down. Lately it was just wood and steel bolts jutting up out of the water that made for great fishing. The two main lakes that comprise the impound total somewhere around two square miles of water, and the club its self is another five square miles.
There's no way I would ever say man could improve on nature, but this was pretty close. It was always beautiful, but now in its maturity even more so. We saw a bald Eagle snatch a fish up out of the water that day, a beautiful sight to behold if it has to be one of your last. Never saw them back in the day.
Now as I said, it had rained hard and we had quite a storm the week before. I saw the timber too late due to it being waterlogged and the wake from the other boat making it blend in with the shadows of its wake. The guy in the other boat saw it in time and that's why we crossed paths that day. Him trying his level best to not hit it and protect the people in his boat is what sent him into my path is all, cant blame him either.
Some days things just go wrong.
When we hit the wake the boat did just what I knew it would, when we hit the timber is when things went south. The boat jumped into the air and heeled over to port tossing my wife out and clear of the boat. Me being in the back stayed planted until the nose of the boat came down and stuffed into the water effectively stopping the boat dead.
I remember flying through the air and getting that adrenaline jolt, I knew this was going to hurt.
But it didn't. I registered the impact and knew something terrible happened to me, but there was no pain. I was just floating looking down into a haze of reddish water and realized I couldn't move. I wasn't sad or angry, just shocked. I tried to swim and right myself, but nothing worked. Floating there I realized I was going to die, and being this was the only thing I could do, that's what I did.
After a bit I could see people around and they were helping my wife and she was crying. there was this fat guy there laying face up on the beach not moving and I realized that he was me. My first thought was damn, you really let yourself go. Then I realized how ridiculous this was, too late now. I felt bad for my wife and the people who had to witness all this.
The coroners report stated blunt force trauma, but we know this is short for a broken neck.
Some days things just go wrong.
I felt bad for the rescuers who had to get me off the beach and the driver of the other boat. The investigation found him 70% at fault and since he had had a few beers, they were going to try to charge him with manslaughter. My wife and family intervened as best they could, his family was with him and his kids witnessed this and had been through enough.
I'm not happy now, but I'm not sad either. I'm not hot and I'm not cold. I cant touch anything and the wind if it is hot or cold blows right through me and I don't feel it. I'm not mad and I blame no one, I'm contented I guess is the proper way to put it.
I've always loved this place and I think Ill stay here. I'm free to roam and can do as I please. Its not a horrible way to be, but I guess the one thing I do feel is lonely. Not when there's no one around, but when I see people having fun.
When there's no one around there's always the wildlife. I try to get close to them, the ducks, geese and cormorants, but they always sense something is wrong and move away just out if reach. The fish are the easiest to get close to, turtles too.
If I could touch things I would steal a fishing pole and pass my time fishing. I'm not a thief, I hate a thief, but what harm is there now? If I stole someone's fishing pole they would have one wild story to tell, I think that is a fair trade, don't you.
When there are people around I feel like getting up to some mischief, but I don't. It wouldn't be nice and it wouldn't be fair to mess with them. Even if it would be fun. Ill just have to be content looking at the girls in bikinis and watching others have fun.
I gotta go now. Don't know why or where to, but I just think its time to move on a bit.
See you when you get here.
And you will someday get here.
