It was a hot Sunday afternoon on Homer’s Happy Hog Farm (Homer is my dad). The usual crew was assembled, looking for something to do. We took inventory of our resources. There were four of us: my older brother, Sam, the engineer; my younger brother, Luke, the guinea pig; my friend, Dave, who was just along for the ride; and myself, the expert driver. We also discovered a pulley, some fence posts, lots of nylon rope, an inner tube from a tractor tire, and an old car, all of which were just asking to be used. Sam and I decided it would be fun to build a water ride.

We trudged through tall, dusty grass and poison parsnip to Wildcat Creek, a muddy little stream that runs through our pasture. All itchy and sweaty, we arrived on the bank with our supplies in tow. While the rest of us wallowed in the water to escape the smoldering heat, Sam surveyed the area and selected a section of our creek between two bridges. "Hey, you guys, let’s pull the tube up this stretch with the car," he hollered, pointing upstream.

Construction began with Sam pounding three fence posts into the shallow water, while I scoped out the terrain, looking for a path that the Mazda could negotiate. There were way too many bumps and washouts for my taste. "Dave, go get the skid loader!" I barked. I never did like to waste time doing things by hand. When Dave finally got back, I proceeded to smooth out a runway by using the skid loader to scrape the bumps into the washouts. Meanwhile, Dave wandered off to join Luke, who was keeping cool under a bridge.

"Ben, stop messing around and get over here!" Sam grumped. He had suspended the pulley between the fence posts, tied the rope to the inner tube, and started clearing some weeds from the rope’s path. Our rope wasn’t quite long enough, so we had to tie two ropes together. The ride appeared to be ready for a test run, so I trotted back to the house to get our favorite off-road vehicle, an ’81 Mazda GL. Sam tied the rope to the rear bumper while I sent Luke downstream to take the first ride.

"But I don’t wanna ride the stupid tube," he whined. Nevertheless, he stretched out across the big tube and hunkered down.

"Ready?" Sam yelled as he put the car in gear and began to accelerate. Dave and I stood watching, safe on the bank. At first, the tube didn’t pick up much speed, but as it lifted out of the water it seemed like someone had kicked it into high gear, because he was really moving! Sam drove the Mazda too far and ran the knotted part of the rope right through the pulley. This broke the rope and bent the large T-beam fence posts. After a quick fix, we realized that we needed some sort of marker so whoever was driving the car wouldn’t pull the knot through again. I got some flags out of the car and put them where the old GL needed to stop.

Now, with me behind the wheel and Dave on the tube, we resumed the insanity. After many pulls, I improved my driving technique to the point that I could reach about thirty miles per hour before coming to an abrupt halt on the three hundred-foot long runway. At this speed, the tube made a huge wall of water rise up and smack the drenched banks. Eventually, Dave got off the tube and scrambled up the bank to trade places with me so I could ride. He slammed the door shut as I jumped off the bank to get on the battered tube. Sand flew as Dave pulled the car away. I noticed the rope stretch a little, but before I knew it I was riding on a wall of white water that reached from bank to bank. It was hard to hold onto the tube as it was yanked forward through the rock-hard water. When the car reached the markers, the raft came to a screeching halt and I was thrown into the water, just missing one of the posts.

"Hurry up! Let’s do it again!" I exclaimed. But as I struggled to my feet, I saw Dad’s white pickup truck on the bridge; he’d seen the whole thing.

He stepped out of his truck with a quizzical expression on his face and yelled, "What are you kids doing?!"

I responded with something to the effect of, "Just rafting up the creek."

"You boys cut that out right now!"

I’m sure we protested this, but our day of fun in the water screeched to a sudden halt, just like the Mazda when it hit the flags. Dad laughed a bit, then got back in his pickup and drove to the house to report what he’d seen to Mom. He told her that he saw a kid flying up the creek on an inner tube, not knowing that the Mazda was pulling it. He claimed that he didn’t have any clue as to how we managed to zoom up the creek bed so fast until he saw the Mazda backing up for the next run.

It was a hot Sunday evening on Homer’s Happy Hog Farm. The soaked and sandy crew went straggling back to the house, hoping for something to eat.