Appreciation for My Skiers-in-Law

I married into a family of serious water skiers

I’m not the most magnificent physical specimen on the beach. So most people wouldn’t look at me and say, “There goes a guy who is into water sports." But I am into them, not because I love them, but because I have no choice.  

The reason? I married into a water skiing family. When my wife Barb was six years old, her father, Jim, taught her to ski in the brackish waters of Florida’s Banana River between Merritt Island and Cape Canaveral. On loan from Boeing, her dad worked at the Cape in the early 60s during the formative years of our country’s space program, a time when it seemed that even the sky was no longer the limit for human achievement. It was the perfect era and the perfect environment for learning water sports. Jim bought a boat and a house on a canal that ran through the middle of a tranquil Cocoa Beach neighborhood, bringing the ski run literally to his family’s back door. He was so enthusiastic about the activity that he built a special present for his kids—a wooden dock on which Barb and her sisters could hop into his boat anytime they were so inclined. 

They did it nearly daily, and by the time Barb was 11, her father made sure she had graduated from kiddie skis to a single slalom, jetting across the boat’s wake and eventually spraying water to an altitude twice her height. Her dad also taught her fortitude, since salt water often brings encounters with threatening sea creatures, and memories of multiple stings from Atlantic jellyfish have haunted her dreams.

When my wife’s family moved to Washington State, Jim sold his ski boat, but in a few years Barb’s older sister married an enthusiastic skier and boat owner named Dan, and the family sport was revived with ski trips every summer to the Columbia River and its ski-friendly setting.  

That’s when I entered the picture, and about the time Barb and I began dating seriously, she invited me to her family’s vacation with the question, “Have you ever water skied?” 

“Lots of times,” I answered. 

“On one ski?” she inquired.  

“Well, no,” I confessed. “But I’m pretty good on two.” 

She grimaced. “In our family,” she scolded, “we all ski on one. And we all do it well. And with my Dad driving the boat, that’s what he’ll expect.” With that, I realized if there was any hope of actually marrying this woman, an education in single-plank skiing was in my future.  

Along with that came an education in Pacific Northwest water temperatures. Whereas my previous experience had been in the shallow lakes of Texas, most Washington waterways originated from recent snowmelt, and I quickly learned that goose bumps were a routine byproduct of water sports there. And with Barb’s father around, I also learned not to complain about them.

I’ll never forget my first try behind the boat with Jim at the throttle. Floating in the water grasping the rope, awkwardly bobbing up and down in the icy drink, I was determined to impress him. Finally gaining my balance and my will, I yelled, “Hit it!” signaling Jim to accelerate.  

In my imagination I had pictured this moment, effortlessly rising on top of the wake and amazing my future father-in-law with my perfect form and acute coordination. Instead, the boat lurched forward and the rope flew out of my hands, leaving me feeling flustered and uncoordinated. And cold. 

Jim circled the boat around, and I grabbed the rope for another try. Unfortunately the second verse was the same as the first—the boat sped off, taking the ski rope, but not me, with it.  A third and fourth repetition saw the same results. On my next try I finally struggled to a standing position, teetered and flailed for a few seconds, then went down in a spectacular wipe out. Barb decided to put me out of my misery with the words, “Okay, my turn!” Then, following her immediate and stunning display of ski expertise, we returned to the dock; her father, like me, silent all the way. 

Despite my clumsiness, I eventually passed the one-ski test (and got Jim’s reluctant but genuine blessing). Over the next thirty-plus years, Barb and I continued our family’s summer water skiing tradition in Eastern Washington, though even a wet suit couldn’t cure my near hypothermia, and I never found a remedy for my off-balance awkwardness. Our kids have fared better, not only successfully skimming across the water individually, but a few times skiing in pairs or even three at once. On one memorable occasion, Barb, along with two siblings and two cousins, proved their prowess by executing a Cypress Gardens-worthy one-boat-five-skier pattern to the applause of our growing family of water sports enthusiasts, my father-in-law in the role of chief cheerleader.

It was a solemn summer when Jim passed away; losing the patriarch and founder of our family ski tradition was a blow to us all. But the tradition lived on. The torch passed to my brother-in-law Dan, who, every summer, continued to pull dozens of our siblings, cousins, kids and grandkids over the chilly Columbia. No doubt Jim would have been proud to see multiple generations continuing the tradition that he began.  

Feeling nostalgic recently, Barb and I returned to Cocoa Beach and took a drive through the neighborhood where her father had settled his family a half-century earlier. Pulling up in front of their former address, we were dismayed to find a new home under construction on the site. We located the owners, told them who we were, and they were kind enough to give us a tour of the property, explaining that a hurricane had leveled the previous house Barb’s father had bought.  

We walked around the building site to the backyard and canal, reminiscing about Barb’s childhood ski exploits. Nearing the water’s edge, we suddenly halted, staring down in disbelief. Though a hurricane had destroyed Barb’s old house, there in front of us, fully intact, was the wooden dock her dad had constructed with his own hands years earlier. The storm may have toppled an entire home, but it couldn’t destroy the gift from a tenacious father to his kids, just as it couldn’t shatter the timeless memory of his devotion to see them excel.  

Like the footings of that dock, his devotion had been driven deep, and like its weathered-but-solid deck boards, the results of his devotion endured.

Even for his clumsy son-in-law.

© Nick Walker 2022

Two of my kids following our ski tradition on the Columbia River