There are a number of firsts we experience in life, and stay in our memory for our entire lives.  Many of those events are deeply personal and private.  This is not one of those stories.  Many of those momentous firsts we experience are also meant to be shared, and take place on a public stage.  Sometimes with dozens or hundreds or even thousands watching.  This particular event I’m thinking of was definitely witnessed by less than a dozen, and perhaps even no one.  I can’t be too sure, as I was pretty involved in trying to make certain things work for me the way I thought they should.

For the longest time, I got the strange notion, that I would like to sail.  I’m pretty sure it had something to do with listening to much too much Jimmy Buffett music, but that’s another story.  Being the bookworm that I am, I thought the first thing I should do was to read as much information I could about the ancient art of sailing.  I made a trip to the library and got all kinds of sailing books and checked them out.  I poured over them for hours.  Upon completion, I was pretty sure I understood the basics about how to sail a boat.  One of the things I discovered, was that this was one of those things you could only go so far with before you needed to get your hands dirty.

Well, that opportunity would present itself soon enough.  Upon pouring through the local classified paper, I read an ad for a little 13 foot Snark sailboat for sale.  And it was only about $200.  I made a phone call, and drove out to the gentleman’s house.  As it turned out, he had won the boat in a draw from a local pet store.  PetSmart I believe.  The boat was constructed of high density Styrofoam, and come with one sail.  I purchased a life jacket and a canoe oar (in case the wind dies), and some tie downs from the local Canadian Tire store.  With the car upside down on the roof of my Saturn, I drove out to a small man made lake in town called Fanshawe Lake.

I launched the boat, paddled a little off shore, and spent the next few hours trying to figure out why the boat refused to respond to my every command.  Just as I was about to head home, I realized that my rudder had two settings.  The first setting had it lifted out of the water, and the second setting had it in the water.  Needless to say, I had bee trying to sail around for hours with my rudder out of the water.  Anyone who has tried to steer a rudderless boat, can understand how difficult that can be.  I lowered the rudder into the water, and all of a sudden everything worked.  The experienced of being powered and moving around this small lake completely under wind power and my own skill was remarkable, astonishing, spectacular and life changing.  10 years later I still get a kick out of it.

I thought I would start this blog off, with a somewhat embarrassing story about my past.  Those of you who know me will probably recognize it, but hopefully no one I know will actually find this little piece of digital literature I currently own.  It’s a rather amusing story, and somewhat unfortunately too many people from my past always remember about me.  Which is kind of funny, but also a little bit disturbing as well.  Believe it or not, it involves some rather strange items including but not limited to a Yoda poster, an old fish tank, a doctors strike, a water-bed, one ambulance, two police cars, and far too much alcohol.

I was still in high school at the time, or maybe just graduated.  It’s kind of hard to remember, as it was a while ago, and the whole series of events were and are somewhat hazy.  My parents were gone out of town, and I was about to have my first and last home party without their knowledge.  Given that the emphasis is on last, should give you some clue as to how bad the night would turn out.   Personally, I only remember a few events of the night.

The first thing, I remember, is starting to drink a little too early, and a little too quickly.  Suffice it to say, that as the guests (many of whom I didn’t even know) started to show up I was way to far gone.  It’s a good thing that this was in the days before texting, and MSN, as I’m sure there would have been many more people there.  My buddies and brothers made a wise decision early on, and decided to send me to bed to sleep things off early on.  Up to this point things were pretty much OK, and nobody was hurt.  All that was about to change.

At some point during my slumber, I decided it would be a good time to get out of my water-bed, because I needed to make it to the washroom.  Instead, I ended up throwing up all over my favorite poster of Yoda that was hanging on my wall.  But wait, it gets even better.  I shared my bedroom with my brother, who had an empty 20 gallon fish aquarium sitting on end next to his bed as a makeshift night stand.  Yes, my parents obviously had some interesting decorating ideas.  Anyway, this is the part where someone gets hurt.  Namely me!

While leaving my bed, I stumbled and crashed into the aquarium.  Not a good thing.  I had several deep gashed on my left side and up to my armpits.  The noise obviously brought would be rescuers.  My brother called for an ambulance to take me to emergency.  Some how, his 911 call gave the wrong impression, and within minutes there were 2 police cars and an ambulance on the front yard to deal with what they though was a violent fight that led to a stabbing.  Ohh boy, the neighbors were not impressed.

Later at the hospital, I was stitched up without the need for any anesthetic.  Gee what a surprise.  The emergency doctor was even less impressed, while in my stupor as he was stitching me up, I decided to berate him on how terrible it was that most of the doctors in the province where on strike.  Except for emergencies, obviously.  My colorful language about the slipper booties the hospital made me wear was also voice loud enough for anyone in the waiting room to hear.

Not a good night at the time, but a funny story for the future.  Just don’t tell my kids about it.