Take Me To Post Comment Form Hey kids!
Oh boy what a weekend this is!
I love Memorial Day weekend. For most of us it’s the first taste of freedom after 12 long years of school and the first chance to go nuts out there in the world. No parents, no rules, just you and your friends. Time to go to the lake, or skiing, or to do something that you would have otherwise been inhibited to do. Some use it to travel abroad. Some use it to party and others use it to catch up with the rest of the class and earn that diploma so as not to embarrass the parents.
In my youth the family would always go to Lake Don Pedro for the weekend. We were a water faring family. By this I mean that I was always surrounded by boats and fishing. This also meant that I had to learn to clean and fillet fish from the age of 6. Our family would frequent the lakes and streams all year round.
There was always plenty of fishing, swimming, water skiing and some fricking awesome grilling. We were doing karaoke with a spotlight, a stick covered in aluminum foil for a microphone and an AM radio by a bonfire in 1975 before it was popular. Dad was a butcher and a bass fisherman so we would grill big mouth black bass and have salads of fresh picked mushrooms and fresh watercress. These were the beginnings of learning to forage for food. I remember having grilled frogs legs with lemon butter and eating meats marinated in Budweiser. This was in the old days when you could get away with that stuff.
Most families that own pleasure boats only take them out 1 or 2 times a summer. Therein lies the greatest source of folly known to me as a young adult. These “Holiday Boaters” only drive their cars with a trailer once a year. Obviously they aren’t as well practiced as dad and I were. Let me paint the scene for you. The Launch ramp at Lake Don Pedro has about 10 lanes in it, meaning that there are 2 docks on either side of the paved portion of ramp that leads into the water. For reasons unknown to me, most people would back their trailers into those 2 lanes only. This in itself is difficult and can take up to a half an hour to do for the average person. The “Man” would usually back the boat down the ramp and not realize that if your car turns left in reverse; your trailer actually goes to the right.
Many times the woman or child would wait on the dock and holler to the driver which direction to move the trailer. This caused some of the greatest arguments that my little 6 year old ears had ever heard. Grown men swearing at their wives and children at the top of their voices at length about how they were embarrassing him! One time I saw a man drive the trailer onto the dock because he forbid the family to holler out directions to him. The man backed up and the trailer had one tire on the dock and one on the ramp and as he backed up the boat and all their summer food and fun equipment flipped over into the water and there was a bang crash as the hitch ripped his trailer and back bumper off of the car. That’s when the REAL cussing began. The same would happen if the man forgot to unhitch the boat from the trailer and the car would back into the lake and fill up with water. I still remember the sizzle and hiss followed by the glug glug sound of a tailpipe going under water.
I was taught to drive the boat at 5 years old and have since become a Master Boater. (You dirty bugger. I said master BOATER!) Because of this, Dad would take a center lane and drop the boat in the water with me in it; head back up the ramp, park the car and would be back at the dock in 2 minutes. I would swing the boat around and pick him up and we were on our way as the 2 cars in the outer lanes were still backing up and yelling obscene things at each other.
As an adult I have had some fun times with my friends on this weekend. My friend Jimmy would let loose and raise hell on a long weekend. He would do some crazy stuff and always make the gang laugh at the trouble he would get himself into. Jimmy is dead now. He gave his life for his country in the desert a little while after high school. Let’s not forget what this weekend is all about. Memorial Day is all about remembering the sacrifices of the men and women of the armed forces and the families that gave them to us. Never forget that. Never forget them.

Peace and love kids.
Be safe.
Steve Mendoza