A Water Skiing Turkey

Have you ever sit in a room with a bunch of guys and thought about doing something crazy.  The conversation would discuss what you would do, and how you would do it.  But 99 out of 100 times there is no further action that takes place.  It was just a fun conversation among men, or boys depending on how there wife views the conversation.
The story I am about to tell you is true. This really did happen, and there were many witnesses. 
I believe it was thanksgiving of 2005, my Father in Law, his Brother in Law, and I were sitting in my Father in Laws living room discussing our past endeavours in the world of skiing behind a four wheeler.  this however is not something that is taboo. Nor does it fit into the "Hey Guys Watch This" category.  You know that category, it is the last words spoken by a redneck category. Snowboarding or skiing behind a four wheeler is part of the redneck Olympic's and can no longer be classified as the last act of a redneck.  Skiing behind a four wheeler was something that we had done often. 
So the discussion continued.  We were thinking of ways to better control the process of following behind the four wheeler without falling down so frequently, when my Father in Law, Captain Black Beard, came up with his best rambling to date. Black Beard proclaimed that with enough speed, he believed that it was possible to ski across his pond while being pulled by the four wheeler.  Instantly, I encourage this ideal and proclaim Black Beard a genius.  The following 30 minutes was a mixture of Black Beard and his Brother setting up the logistics of this stunt, while I threw out so much encouragement, I thought I was turning into Tony Robbins. 
The plan went like this.  Captain Black Beard was going to strap a snowboard to his feet, hold onto a ski rope that was tied to the back of a four wheeler and then when the four wheeler drove past him and started to pull he would hop onto the water and ski across.  Simple enough, right!!! 
I volunteered to drive the four wheeler so that I could see this event happen from the front roll.  Black beard was all set to go, while resting on the bank of the pond.  Black Beards brother in law his parents and family all watched as he was about to make his maddin voyage across the big pond.
With a thumbs up from Black Beard I throttled down on the four wheeler and speed past the right side of Black Beard and be side the pond.  The rope tightend and the four wheeler was stoped in its tracks for the weight of Black Beard.  Black Beard never had a chance, he went head first into the pond straight off of the bank.  At first I thought I was going to have to go in after him because with the snowboard tied to his feet he couldn't really pull himself out of the water. 
By the time I got to him he was turned faceing the bank and doing an army crawl out of the water.  Nobody even attempted to help him,  everybody was laughing to hard.  when he finally did get out of the water and get the snow board off his feet the shock form the cold water hit him and he couldn't even put two words togather.  All Black Beard kept saying was cold, cold, cold.  He scurried back up to the house and went and took a hot shower. 
When Black Beard came back downstairs he started placing blame on me.  He said that I let off of the gas and that is why he couldn't get the board on top of the water.  I told him the situation and he determined that with the right amount of speed and runway to the pond, it was still possible to do. I couldn't belive it, 20 minutes ago he was face down in the pond and the tempurature outside was in the 40's. Now he was planning another go, at the same event.  I thought he was Captain Black Beard, but apparently he is Super Dave. 
To my knowledge the Captain has never tried this stunt again, but if you hang around him long enough he will restart the discussions, as to how it can be done.  I look for one day in the future to be writing a follow up to this story.  I dont think it will change much from the original. I also think this event was worthy of a "Hey Guys Watch This".

Fruit of The Loom Ninja

As I get older in life certain things people do, strike me as weird or funny. There is one person in my life however that I find to be weird and funny and that would be my Dad. When you combine weird and funny it provides for some interesting situations.


Case in point. The time my Dad decides he was going to show my brother in law and I some karate moves. On the surface there is absolutely nothing funny about this, but when I tell you he is in nothing but a white under shirt and his fruit of the loom briefs, it becomes a little disturbing and funny.

For some reason he felt it was time to share his experiences in the world of martial arts. I have no memory of anything he told us. The only thing that I remember is that I was completely scared that one of his pieces of equipment was going to fall out while he was showing us a high kick. The good thing is that he is an old man and his high kick is more of a thigh kick. Thank God, or I might have needed therapy after this lesson.

The lesson lasted about 30 minutes. Finally after getting tired of being put in arm bars and choke locks by a half naked old man, I told him to go to bed, or put his gosh dang pants on. You shouldn’t have to tell a man to put his pants!! You defiantly shouldn’t have to tell him twice.

After explaining to the old man that I no longer wanted to see a Steven Seagal arm bar from a half naked man, he decided that my brother in law and I were not yet worthy to learn the ways of the Fruit of The Loom Ninja. He proceeded to defile the fruit of the looms, by dropping a bomb in them that Franklin D. Roosevelt would have been proud of, while walking to his bedroom.

Just another eventful day in the life of one Duard “W.”Rutledge.