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"Waterskiing 101" with Dr. Scratch & Roy Dion
by Tim Rak

The first year I ever water-skied; Doc and Roy volunteered to teach me how. I'm not quite certain of the date, but the lake was ready to be skied - of course the ice had been off the lake for at least 3 or 4 days by then! I didn't actually water-ski that weekend, but I was there for the trend setting "water skiing with a ball cap on".

Doc had not seen Roy for the month or two prior to this meeting. To Doc's surprise Roy had corrected his receding hair line problem with a toupee (hair piece). Roy was the first one to get up and water ski. We were starting off at the main beach boat houses. Roy was standing in about knee high deep water with about 5 feet of slack. He told Doc to "hit it" and up out of the water he came, made his loop around the lake and signaled Doc to take him back.

Unfortunately, Roy didn't make it back to his original starting point and ended up stopping closer to the "hole" than he wanted to. Down under the water Roy went, quite chilly as I recall. When Roy came up he was cursing at Doc and his hairline was back to "original".

I was the first to spot "it". Doc thought it was a dead muskrat; Roy retrieved "it", stomped out of the lake up to his cottage. When he came back down to the shoreline, hair piece back on and held firmly in place by a red and white ball cap - ready to go again!

Since then, even after Roy and Doc retired from skiing, I've always made it a point to remember these old friends by wearing a ball cap when water skiing on the lake.

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Dr. Scratch
Circa 1972
Atton's Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada


Credits:
Sirrs, Janet