A Brief Note on Waterskiing

I have waterskied before. It took me about 10 times to get up, but I did it. I think I was 12 or 13. I have waterskied maybe a dozen times. Once I figured it out, though, I discovered that, really, I’d rather just swim. I’m not a big fan of equipment. Snow skiing, for example, is fun but not so fun that I ever want to walk across a parking lot, in ski boots, carrying a pair of skis and poles, ever again.

I went swimming in Scott’s Flat Reservoir yesterday, as I have done at least three times a week this summer. Scott’s Flat Lake is an artificial lake in Nevada City, California, where I live. (Nevada City is between Tahoe and Sacramento and exponentially nicer than either place.) The lake was very clear yesterday, gem-green, warm, so beautiful that my friend and I were laughing out loud at how lucky we were to be there. Some people around here are snobby about the lake, because it’s fake, and we have a real-life river nearby, but I think the lake is just fine, although, frankly, I understand snobbery in all forms.

There were two boats buzzing around in the middle of the lake, pulling water skiers. I watched them and wondered how much more fun it might be for those people to be on top of the water than submerged in it. And if it was, was it so much more fun that they had to go out and buy a boat and skis and a wetsuit and, repeatedly, gasoline? And was it so fun that it was worth putting all that gas in the water? I pictured the waterskier saying: “I get to make this whole lake smell like gas because swimming in crystal clear 78-degree water surrounded by green foothills just isn’t fun enough for me.”

There’s something so smug about turning up your nose at fuel-powered entertainment. I do love going really fast in a nice car, though I myself do not own one and would never bother. Do I think I’m better because I like to swim and someone else likes to waterski? Do I really wish that person waterskiing was just like me? When Los Angeles and New York are submerged in water 50 years from now will I enjoy shaking my fist at water-skiers and shouting, “This is 12 percent more your fault than mine?” No. I probably will be dead then anyway. Or I’ll be dying, and I will think, “Oh, remember that day I was swimming, and the boats were buzzing around? That was a nice day.”

Photo via enuiislife/flickr.