Howdy,
Continued from yesterday …
But back to Jasper and tubing behind the ski boat: my six year old son had more go in him than some 13, 14 year olds in the boat—at least in the sense of faster-faster.
He started timid, a bit uncertain, as you might imagine, since Jasper hasn’t done much of anything like it and certainly not at any significant speed, but as the day progress and he found his comfort level, Jasper pushed the ride past the comfort level of others on the tubes. We pulled two giant tubes and could easily tow 4-6 people, depending on if little ones were being squeezed on for a safe ride and sweet memory—as opposed to a more fun moment for the driver, challenged with tossing a brother or brother-in-law off the tube and tumbling into the lake.
Both are good. There’s a time and place. For everything a speed.
So toward the end, on a last ride, riding back in the direction of dock and trailer, Jasper got pretty pleased with himself and his penchant for the thumbs up signal for faster. Faster-faster-faster. Jasper kept giving the sign. Continuously.
So much in fact that his own fist popped him in the mouth and made him bleed—making me slow down, to a stop, to see how he was. Now, at the very moment that he said, with bloody teeth, that he was fine and wanted to stay on the tube and keep riding, with a smile even, I knew I was writing about that moment.
But I wanted to tell the story this way, the way I thought it happened. I wanted to up the irony. I wanted to write that Jasper gave himself a bloody mouth, bleeding teeth, jamming his own thumb into his gums signaling faster. Isn’t that great? Go, Jasper, go!
But that’s not exactly what happened. Which, naturally, disappointed my—at first. The true story, however, may be even better …
Grandma gave Jasper a bloody mouth on the tube ride! (And not me, the driver, of course—I wasn’t the one signaling faster, or the one who …) The one who: tried to wrestle Jasper’s upward thumb down while bouncing on the water “inner” tube. (They aren’t really inner tubes anymore: nothing like the old days. The tubes behind the boats are like barges or beaches, taking a driver of great skill to wipe out his or her increasingly helpless passengers.)
Yes, my mom, Jasper’s very own grandmother, assisted in Jasper’s dental bleeding. He wanted to go too fast for the rest of them (though I imagine my mom was just playing with him and his eager and aggressive increase in speed behind the boat—my mom’s a gamer).
But it’s okay that Jasper got a bloody mouth back there speedily bouncing along atop occasionally waves and a stiffening surface. It was okay because a smiling Jasper gave the thumbs up that he was okay and wanted to keep going.
And again, as I quoted in part 1 yesterday, my dad said, “He’s getting tougher and tougher every time I see him.”
Yeah, he’s in first grade.
Thumbs up.
To Grandma’s relief, and chagrin—sharing a tube with a grinning speed demon. No sucking his thumb: he held up.
—Billy
Reading. Writing. Living.
Word Count: 166,570 / On Pace: 165,000 / Year’s Goal: 200,000
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