Guiding Principles #1


 If you've read my previous blog, detailing life in Australia, you may already know the aphorisms that guide my life.  If this is the case, all you get here is a photo of me in a bathing suit in 1978.  That's where this story begins.  Right here.  This boat. This bathing suit.

You see, I had gone out with my friend, Barb, and my cousin, Todd, and his friend, ??.  Waterskiing.  Probably not obvious from the photo as there are no skis and no life-jacket.  (Was there ever a life-jacket? I don't remember.)  What I do remember was that I was a miserable water-skiier.  We could look at hundreds of photos from that day and NEVER see me standing on skis.  It was here, this day, this boat, that my cousin admonished me, "If you are going to fall, fall funny so we can laugh."

We all fall.  We all fail.  We might as well laugh.

And now, why are waterski and waterskiing unhyphenated, but water-skiier is???  Great mystery of life.  At least waterskiing didn't result in months of chiropractic care like snow-skiing did.  Again, no photos would ever show me standing up on skis that day either.

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