When I was a kid, I used to love going to the Detroit boat show. My dad was an avid boater, and so was I. He was an incredible workaholic, but boating was the one thing that he would take time off for from time to time. Every Sunday, we would load up and go off to the lake. My mom would sit in the shade and read while the rest of us would go on the boat. Sometimes we would get to go boat racing, but more often we would just cruise around up and down the lake, enjoying the wind and water. Boat shows were a fantastic time of year for both of us. As a little kid, it felt like a museum to me. I loved getting to see all the big boats filling the room. There were all kinds of different watercraft, from rowboats to luxury yachts, from bass boats to racing boats to pontoon boats.
My dad would go there shopping for boat accessories most times, but I would be there to see all of the big ships. One time, in fact, I got so excited that I tried to pull one of the boats. To my surprise, it moved. The problem was that the boat was tied to other boat trailers in a row. When I pulled the first one, each boat magnified the force. By the time it got to the last one, someone actually almost fell off the deck!
For the most part, however, I wouldn't get into trouble at the boat show. I knew that if I made a fuss, my parents wouldn't take me there next year. That alone was too much to bare. Instead, I would wander around the boat show, politely asking questions about the different boats. I would find out how big a boat was, how fast it could go, how long it could stay at sea, and then go back to my dad to report the facts. Nowadays, I realize that he wasn't really listening. At the time, however, he pretended to be interested. Giving me something to do at the boat show would keep me busy and stop me from causing any trouble. Getting me to leave at the end, however, was a different matter entirely. Usually, the only way to do it was to bribe me with ice cream. I didn't mind – it was the perfect end to a perfect day.
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