.
.
.
Thirty years ago, friends of mine who worked for a SAAB dealership were able to sign out a speedboat and
took me waterskiing. They brought along a little-known new toy -- a 3-4-foot disk simply cut from a sheet
of 1/2'-3/4' plywood and painted white.
.
The idea was that you would kneel on the disk at a 45 degree angle in the water, hold on to the towrope
from the boat and, with a LOT of upper body strength, allow the boat to pull you up until you were skimming
over the top of the water as if you were skiing.
.
Once up, it was a fairly stable platform and you could stand and turn in a circle and stand on one leg, etc. I
saw a guy doing tricks on one with a straight-backed wooden chair and my friends had seen someone with
a small ladder doing tricks once.
.
I would be happy just to get up and "disk". There WAS A pretty stiff breeze out, so the water was pretty
choppy. I got twisted around and, instead of kneeling when I got up, I was sitting down. Each choppy little
wave tapped me on my butt in a staccato pattern that felt so funny that I started to laugh uncontrollably.
Each "ha" coincided with a quick wave -- the only thing that could have been funnier is if it made me fart
machinegun-like each time. The two spotters in the back of the boat thought I looked and sounded so
funny that THEY started laughing uncontrollably, which made ME laugh harder, which made THEM laugh
harder. which made ME laugh harder, etc. etc. etc. -- escalating to the point of ridiculousness. I was
absolutely helpless. I don't believe any of us had ever laughed harder before or since.
.
It must have rivaled my ex-wife on our wedding night.
.
I've seen mass-produced ones now for about $100 -- ours was about $2 worth of plywood and paint.
.
.
.
= new reply since forum marked as read
