I learned to waterski and tube as a kid up at Coon’s Franklin Lodge on Trout Lake in Northern Wisconsin. Coon’s is a slice of heaven summer resort my family has been going to for a week in July since I was 12.

Much of the land around Trout Lake is owned by the government, so there aren’t many houses or other people living on the lake, making Coon’s a pretty secluded place. Until a few years ago, you couldn’t even see lights from any other houses when you looked at the lake from the Coon’s dock at night. And the water is so clear that you can see to the sandy, rocky bottom until the water gets deep.

I loved riding in the ski boats at Coon’s watching others waterski or tube. The first tubes were just plain old black rubber inner tubes with a canvas belt wrapped around them to hold on to. They were slippery as all get out and hard as rocks.

As teenagers, we girls would lay flat on our stomachs on the tubes and get whipped from side-to-side by demon male boat drivers. Eventually, we’d fall off, skipping across the water like stones.

“Oh my God, my swimsuit bottom fell off,” my cousin Mindy yelled at me after we both wiped out.

“What?” I exclaimed, watching the boat turn around to come for us.

“My suit is around my ankles!” she replied as Chip pulled the boat up. He was a cute young man that every girl in camp had a crush on.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Her suit fell off!” I said.

“Really.” He said, looking to see if he could get a glimpse of one of her large naked breasts. “Need some help getting it back on?”

Mindy did manage to get her swimsuit back on all by herself and we got back on the tube for another wild ride. I stopped tubing in my 20s when I realized that sitting or lying flat on a tube getting flung back and forth behind a boat going 30 mph wasn’t all that comfortable on my insides.

Skiing is a different matter, though. I love to waterski, especially on Trout Lake on a day when the water is calm and smooth as glass. Because Trout Lake has sand bars, there are never many other boats on the water, which makes it an excellent skiing venue on a still day. Cutting back and forth behind the speeding boat with the wind in my face and the water spraying in a rooster tail behind me still gives me a thrill. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because at 52 years old, I can still get up on one ski. But that wasn’t always the case.

“Get in the boat, we’re go’in for a ride,” Rick the boat boy instructed me. He was a college kid who was working the waterfront that year at Coon’s.

“Just you and me?” I asked, feeling a bit flattered and nervous at the same time.

“Yep, just you and me,” he answered. I was about 13 years old and had been trying to get up on one ski for the past several days without any success. Just as the boat would start to pull me out of the water, I’d tumble to the side, not able to find my balance on that 5-inch wide piece of wood. My arms hurt and I’d drunk gallons of lake water. To make matters worse, the Coon’s boat pulled skiers from the shallow water by the dock where there was always a crowd watching.

We sped away from the dock over to a secluded cove nearby where the water was deep. Rick stopped the boat abruptly, threw one ski overboard, and said, “Okay, jump in. You’re gonna get up this time.”

I hopped into the water, feeling the rush as the cold hit me. Teeth chattering, I shoved my right foot into the ski boot and put my left foot behind in the sleeve. Rick threw the tow rope to me and idled the boat out.

“Hit it,” I shouted, struggling to keep my ski straight. Rick gunned the engine and I held on as the boat tugged me against the rush of the water and popped right up. Just like that.

And I never had a problem getting up on one ski ever again. Somehow that college boy with the white stuff on his nose knew that what I needed was some space away from the crowd.