I was a senior in high school and dating a girl from River Oaks. I was introduced to her by one of my cousins. Since I have about a thousand cousins it's no surprise that two of them were dating her older sister and three others were good friends from school. She was a beauty with long blonde hair and blue eyes. Since I was introduced by a cousin she called me Rusty which I kind of liked. I was smitten for sure. Before I go any further, let me say I am the most blessed person in the whole world to have found my wife Debbie a year or so later and never looked back but boy oh boy I had myself a terrible crush at the time.
This girl's family owned a place on a local lake and many of my cousins were frequent visitors out there. I suspected at the time that the two guys dating the older sister were more interested in the lake place than the older sister but that's just a guess on my part....I digress....There were lots of cookouts with swimming and skiing going on at the time and this girl was constantly inviting me out to ski..."You do ski, don't you?" she asked. "Well of course I ski" I lied. I wasn't about to admit I didn't even know how to swim much less stand up on a pair of skis. I had a morbid fear of any lake due to the near drowning on Lake Worth I told you about earlier. I stayed as far away from lakes as possible and made excuses like a politician for passing up invitations.
Eventually I couldn't find any more excuses to say no so I wrote my will, said goodbye to loved ones, comforted myself with the knowledge that drowning was better than going to Vietnam, and agreed to go to the lake. When I got to the party most of the people, including half a dozen cousins were already there. This girl grabbed me by the arm and yelled, "Hey everybody! Look, Rusty came!" I felt honored to be so welcomed but then, I should have felt honored. It was to be my last day on earth for crying out loud. There was lots of good food to eat and I had a hearty appetite even though my spirits were low. I still remember thinking, "Oh man these Lays potato chips are wonderful...gonna miss these potato chips." Eventually this girl's dad said it was time to start skiing so everyone would get a chance before dark. He would pull a skier off the dock slowly and give them a nice ride around the lake before dropping one off to pick up another. Everyone ran to the dock to get a good spot in line. I was a bit embarrassed for my cousins because of their insistence on being first. I had no idea at the time that they wanted to get their skiing in before the girl's dad drowned me in the lake. They all knew I couldn't swim worth a hoot. One even whispered to me, "You aren't really going to do this are you?"
The line grew smaller and I was running out of time. I was watching everything trying to learn something, anything about skiing. Maybe if I could stay up on the skis I wouldn't drown. The boat made the turn back to the dock as the sun began to set. I was the last guy standing. The silhouette of boat and skier against the sunset was spectacular and had I not been so sad I would have enjoyed it. The silhouette raced across the horizon and.....and started to slow down. It got slower until it came to a complete stop and the skier sank from sight. Everyone was worried until a previous skier said the girl's dad had mentioned he was afraid he was going to run out of gas before everyone got to ski. "Oh no! I don't get to ski?? I waited all this time! Doggone it!" snicker, snicker. I spent a lot of time that night in prayer thanking the Lord for His saving grace. Oh sure, I know the grace talked about in the Bible is much more important than an empty gas tank but it sure worked for me that evening.
I don't know if this girl finally figured out I was a scaredy cat, boldfaced liar or if one of my cousins ratted me out, but our relationship fizzled out soon afterward. It worked out for the best of course because I met Debbie later on and life couldn't be better. Debbie doesn't know how to ski either.
