The Deadliest Game

I don't have children. I once had the thought about having children but I quickly realized that it was more from the expectation that I was to have children and not that I really wanted them. I've been told by a few people that I would be a really great dad, and that might be true. But I think part of being a parent is wanting to care for that child. I didn't want that. Having children went to the wayside like the other expectations about my future life that didn't fit. I think people who want to be parents are amazing people, because I swear that 50% of their time is making sure that the child doesn't kill itself by doing something stupid.

This is a time when I did something very stupid.

To understand how this all came about, you need to know more about my family, on my mother's side. My mom was the middle child of five. She has two sisters and two brothers. The oldest is Janice, then Jim, Then Joyce, my mom, and because they ran out of J names my grandparents had Gary and Gayle. From there, they all had their own kids and we spent a lot of time together as one big family. I saw my cousins a great deal, and we would often spend time at each other's houses even thought some of us lived across state lines. I loved being with my cousins, and this is something that is still part of our lives to this day. We are also a crazy bunch that doesn't always make good choices.

On this occasion, we were traveling with my Aunt Janice and her five kids, Paul, Beth, Barb, Becky and Chris. The we part was my mom, my brother and myself. Now, I don't remember why we did this, but we were all traveling to Michigan - Midland to be exact - where my Aunt lived. Normally, we would drive around the big lake that is between Wisconsin and Michigan, commonly referred to as Lake Michigan, often heading south around the bend and up to Midland. For this trip, it is was decided that we would take the ferry across the lake instead.

I love being on boats and the water. I grew up on lakes, water and boats. I can't think of a time in my childhood where we weren't at a lake cabin or on a boat in the summer, it was that much a part of our lives. I had my boating driving license before I had my car driving license, which is to be expected because I think you can drive a boat when you are 14.

It was exciting to be on this ferry with all the cars, crossing one of the great lakes. But the weather wasn't that great and the ferry was rocking quite a bit. But that didn't really bother us at all, since we were used to being on choppy waters. And there was a storm, so it was raining outside and we were informed that instead of being able to go up top on the decks of the ferry, everyone was going to stay inside and out of the water and bad weather. My mother and my aunt started talking and within minutes were deep in conversation, completely oblivious to the rest of the world. So, naturally, we kids decided to wander the ship and have fun.

After maybe half an hour, we ran out of things to do inside the ship. There were cars to look at, and a few people to bother, but really it wasn't all that interesting being below decks on a ferry. I'm not sure who had the original idea that we should just go up on deck anyway, but one of us did. Perhaps I'm not remembering to protect the innocent, but we all agreed that being down below was boring and on the upper deck of the ferry had to be more interesting than this. So, we went.

The upper deck was had the main building and stairwell in the center of the deck, and then a wide expanse of wood on all sides that led to the outer railing of the ferry and beyond that railing was the cold waters of Lake Michigan. The weather had been terrible, but the rain had lessen enough that we could see while up there. But a few reminders of the bad weather remained in the form of really strong winds and a completely wet and slick deck.

Once we were all up and out of the stairwell leading to the deck, we shut the door and clung to the railing of the inner building. The wind was strong and was violently pushing against us. It was very difficult to keep your footing at all on the slick, watery wood and that's when the idea of the deadly game started. And of course, we thought what we were about to do was the most fun idea we as a group had thought up yet.

I want to say Paul went first, but this is what the game was to give you an idea of how stupid we were being. We would use the inner hand rail to pull ourselves to the front of the inner building of the ferry. Once at the top, you would step away from the building, let go of the railing and hold out your arms. From there, the wind would do it's job which was to blow you and your slick feet backwards across the deck, where at the last minute, you would grab the inner railing and save yourself from flying over the edge of the outer railing and out into the waters of the lake. I'll let you read that again to take in the scope of JUST HOW STUPID THIS WAS.

I won't deny that it was fun. The sensation of being somewhat powerless in the face of nature and you are blown backwards was thrilling. There was rightly a strong sense of danger in this action, and we all took our turns on this made up death ride. It became clear as we 'played' our game that the older kids had a much easier time with the wind that Chris and I. We were much smaller, maybe 9 or 10 at the time, and the wind tossed us like dried leaves. We flew down that deck, sliding faster than the rest and we lacked a lot of the strength to grab that wet slick railing at the end. But that didn't stop us from doing this completely insane action over and over again.

Pull yourself to the front of the building - release! Fly! Grab! Repeat! It was great fun. On my forth ride, I noticed that I was having a much harder time grabbing the railing. It was cold on that lake and in the wind and my body was getting very tired. But I still grabbed hold. Paul went, next, flew and grabbed the rail and was safe. Chris was next to go and when he let go, the wind kicked in hard and he darted backward at such a speed he didn't have time to react. Before he knew it, he was past the last chance to catch that back rail and was sliding farther away from us toward the outer edge of the ferry and who knows what. In my mind, I remember time seeming to slow down as most of us watched helplessly as Chris slid away from safety and toward the unknown. He was too far away, but suddenly, there was a long arm that grabbed his wrist and pulled him to the rail. Paul had let go with one hand and managed to snag him and pull him in.

With that scare, we knew on a deep level that this game was not only supremely stupid, but that it was now over. We hurried back to the stairwell and ducked back inside, out of the wind and back into safety. I can't say that we spoke openly about not telling our parents about what we did or what just happened, but we all knew that this was not a good topic of conversation. So we wasted time elsewhere until we were mostly dry and the trip was almost over before we joined back with my mom and my aunt. They never asked what we were doing, nor did we tell them.

It wasn't until my 20s that we finally told them the story of what we did on that ferry. My mother turned white and said the thing that only makes sense, "MY GOD! You could have been killed!" We just nodded, "That's why we didn't tell you," we replied.