Monday, May 18, 2009

Michael Mahan swallowed alive by a rubber doughnut

At the end of each two-week camp session, there would be a couple of light duty days. Departing campers would shove off on a Saturday morning, and arriving campers would trickle in on Sunday afternoons. In between was a chance for staff to relax. And what staff members did to relax was to act like campers. Campers maybe pushing the envelope a little bit.
Michael, his brother Robbie, and a few others were very accomplished water skiers. In the evenings the warm bay-side water behind camp became glass calm, and when there were no kids to attend to, the skiers could spend hours cutting sharp, beautiful arcs of spray riding a high tech, concave slalom ski that Robbie (below) had. They could cut so hard their bodies would be nearly parallel to the surface of the water, and they would sometimes playfully drag their fingers along the surface when making high speed turns like this. They made it look easy, but it wasn't.
Somehow we came into possession of a very large truck tire inner-tube with the idea of pulling it behind the ski boat. It was maybe five feet wide. We thought it might be perfect to allow the really small kids to experience the thrill of skipping along behind a powerful, fast moving ski boat, surfing down the leading edge of a wake at 30 miles an hour or so, all the while skimming just a few inches above the surface of the water. The first time you do this, it's impossible not to have your eyes go wide and to have a big smile planted on your face. It's a hoot.
Being the inherently cautious, careful, and unsupervised teenaged boys that we were, we quickly agreed that the prudent thing would be for an experienced staff member to test fly the inner-tube, and to explore the outer limits of its hydro-dynamic performance. Michael announced that he would do this, with an implied challenge to the rest of us in the ski boat that there wasn't much about riding an inner-tube that he wasn't up to. We all thought he was probably right, but had the idea we could at least see how high we could get him airborne over the wake, and maybe even spill him a few times.
Tommy Horne would be driving the ski boat. Enough said.
We took a ski rope and passed the handle through the inside of the inner-tube, and then passed the bitter end of the ski rope through the loop of the handle so that everything wrapped around the tube and couldn't go anywhere. This proved to be a grievous mistake, but we didn't realize it at the time. (That's why they call them test pilots.)
We threw it all overboard and Michael got in the water and started to figure out how to position himself on top of the thing. The hole in the middle of the inner-tube was too big to allow you to ride it on your stomach comfortably -- your back was unsupported and it hurt when the tube flopped around. So Michael rolled over and drapped two arms, two legs, and the back of his neck around the top of the tube with his butt down inside the middle of the hole, and that seemed to be secure. The idea of riding the thing crotch first with your backside hanging over this hole in the middle didn't seem right either, so Michael turned around facing backwards to the ski boat. This also allowed his long arms to wrap all the way around the leading edge for a good firm grip.
"This is the ticket. Hit it!"
Tommy buried the throttle handle and never backed it off. The ski boat was a screamer, too. It was light weight with a big Mercury outboard on the back. Within seconds, Michael and the inner-tube were bounding in the wake, and Tommy began making big S-turns that would send Michael and the inner-tube skipping sideways across the wake and high into the air. It looked pretty fun but didn't seem very taxing on the test pilot so Tommy began driving the boat around in a wide circle, then peeling off and coming back towards the middle of the circle just when the wake all converged in the middle. That maneuver would set up a very choppy area about 100 feet wide or so, and Tommy would deftly sling Michael and the inner-tube into the chop like a sling shot.
This actually looked a little brutal, but in fact there was something more sinister going on that those of us in the boat weren't aware of. And Michael wasn't in a position to explain it to us.
The inner-tube was way too stretchy. There was nothing about its structure that would allow it to maintain its shape under a load. This is hard to describe, so forgive my food analogy.
When it was either just floating still on the water, or was soaring in the air, it would assume its normal shape of a round doughnut with a big wide hole in the middle. But whenever it was going fast on top of the water, the drag of the water made it elongate, and the ski rope tied around the front made its shape collapse so that it looked more like a pair of sausages with both of their ends tied tightly to each other.
The upshot of all this is when the tube would elongate, the inside walls of the tube squeezed down on Michael's hips and ribs so tightly that he couldn't budge. Not one bit. It was like being in a vice. Each time the tube went airborne (doughnut), it would open up and release him from the vice. When it plopped back down onto the water, Michael would slide down inside the doughnut hole another couple of inches. Then it would elongate again (two sausages,) and pin his hips and ribs so that he was stuck in that position.
Over the course of this ride, Michael started losing ground. He was slowly sinking into the doughnut hole. We could see less and less of him; eventually just the top of his head, two feet pointing skyward, and two hands with a deathgrip on the top of the inner-tube.
We found this hilarious.
Mostly because 'ole Mahan didn't look too in control of things.
Tommy was gleeful, and became inspired to launch Michael and the inner-tube to new heights and more boisterous waves. At this point, Michael's rear end was clearly visible hanging out the bottom of the hole in the middle of the inner-tube whenever it went airborne. Unknown to us, this had turned into a freightening ride. Michael's hands and feet were seen wiggling in a purposeful way and a debate began as to whether he wanted us to go faster or slower.
Finally, after a particularly high bounce, the ski boat felt like it lurched to a complete stop. A couple of us slid off the seats we were sitting on in the boat. A big plume of spray went up around the inner-tube.
This was all caused by Michael's face and chest acting as a human speed brake when his body finally slipped through the bottom of the doughnut hole, upside down, with his feet still locked in.
Oh, the hilarity. The pain of convulsive laughter. The sight of the inner tube sailing in the air behind the boat free of Michael. A big sweeping turn to pick Michael up. Don't see him. Can't find him. No bobbing head anywhere. We track back down the wake until we spot a tiny bit of floatsam just ahead. It's Michael's face just poking up and looking skyward, in so much distress he can hardly move. Fortunately it is only 4 or 5 feet deep, and he can stand a little.
"Dude! Michael? Hey man, are you ok?" A moan.
It was not the best day to be wearing a signature Mahan nose. Drag one of those things backwards behind a boat at high speed, and if you can survive the force of water shooting up into your nostrils, you'll have a story people will tell about you.



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