The Glory Days of Summer

If you were on Lake Rabun in the 1980s, you might remember us because we were a bit of a spectacle. Back then, the Ski Nautique was the hot boat to have—we didn’t have one, but they were popular on the lake—and water skiing and tubing were the main watersports (if you don’t count fishing from a bass boat as a watersport). Is there anything more satisfying than making a hard cut on a slalom ski and throwing a huge rooster tail? I don’t think so. When it came to group fun, though, we had the best contraption on the lake. It was a long, inflated tube with runners along the sides and handles on top for up to five people that was pulled behind a ski boat. It was bright yellow and looked like a giant banana. I think it was officially called a Wave Cutter, but we called it the Water Weenie. We rode that thing like there was no tomorrow. My dad comes from a large family, so we always had a houseful of guests in the summertime. We loaded up the Water Weenie with batch after batch of riders, and Dad pulled us for hours. The hardcore riders would offer up a challenge: “You can’t throw us off!” And so, the Water Weenie became a test of wills and skills for riders and driver alike.

Dad started each trip by dragging us to the Big Basin. There were fewer boats on the lake back in the day, so there was plenty of room to maneuver. He started out with gentle “S” curves to make us have to shift our weight back and forth to keep the Weenie balanced. Remember, there were five of us on the thing at a time, so we all had to work together. Then he went with a sharper turn followed quickly by a sharp turn in the other direction to try to force us out of the wake. For experienced riders, this was no big deal because we had learned a trick to help us steer. We always put the biggest rider in the back, and his job—it was usually a guy—was to hold on to the back handle and hang his body off the back of the Water Weenie. He became a human rudder and gave us an advantage over the boat driver because we could better control the giant banana as it hurtled through the water. One of my cousins learned the hard way that when one is a human rudder, one must securely tie the drawstring on one’s swim trunks lest they be swept off by the force of the water going by. Swim trunks sink rather quickly. The turns got sharper; we got tired. From time to time, a wave would sweep over the front of the Water Weenie and pluck off the front two riders. Sometimes we wouldn’t get the timing down on group leaning, and we’d all pitch over. When that happened, we’d climb back on, shake our fists at Dad, and yell, “You can’t throw us off again!” And it would start over. When we had the right combination of riders we could stay on forever, and Dad would have to reach deep down into his bag of tricks to tip us over. His piece de resistance was a maneuver that created a swirling mass of waves. He would drive the boat in a big circle for a bit and get the wake churned up in the middle. We had to lean hard to keep the Weenie upright, so as soon as he dashed across the swirling waves, if we didn’t read quickly enough, we got dumped into the water. There was one group of riders who managed to defeat the old man once, maybe twice, and we have taken our place in family lore as conquering heroes. It’s also possible he let us win. We went through at least three Water Weenies over the years, and Dad kept dragging us up and down the lake summer after summer until all the riders grew up and had things like school and jobs that kept us from gathering as often. Eventually, the last Water Weenie was retired when there was no one to ride it. When we gather today, we like to talk about the glory days on Lake Rabun and summers of being dragged behind a boat on a giant yellow Water Weenie. Precious memories that last a lifetime.

Karla Jacobs is a freelance writer, a soccer mom, and a community volunteer with deep family roots in the North Georgia Mountains. When not writing about pop culture, policy, and politics, she can often be found hiking backcountry trails with her family. She lives in Marietta, Georgia with her husband and their two teenage children.