Although my brother loved to dig in the sand and I loved the water, we always played together when we had the RC boat with us. That ship was special! It was made of wood with a white hull with sky blue trim and a real teak wood floor. It was highly detailed right down to the chrome studs, cleats, and flag pole.

On one particular trip to the lake, there were other children who also wanted to play with the boat.

My brother, who had a little bit of evil in him, made the boat go out into deep water so the other kids couldn’t catch up. The lake, called Mauthe Lake, was a relatively small lake, I’d guess around 20 acres, so there were never any real waves to worry about and the boat just kept going and going. The other kids pushed and shoved him because he didn’t want to share.

Inevitably, the RC boat’s batteries died, of course. Oh! The boat was defenseless and in the middle of the lake. The wind blew it onto the opposite shore and into the brush near the riding trails.

The other kids teased and teased my brother for his short-term thinking. (I have to admit, I was secretly laughing at him, too.) My God, Dad was going to be mad if we didn’t get that boat home!

Since mom used to tell us that she was a great swimmer, we asked her to rescue the boat. But, there was no amount of pleading to make her swim after that boat. I didn’t know how to swim to get it back either, she was too young.

By this time, all the other parents and children were looking at the lake in the inoperable RC boat and trying to figure out what to do.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the lake, some horsemen appeared. We all started yelling and jumping and pointing. I’m not sure they saw or heard us, but they did see our ship! One of the riders rode his horse into the lake and horse and rider swam to the boat and retrieved it! YEAH!!

Once the riders made it around the lake to our beach, they returned the boat to our mother. She quickly put it in the trunk of our ’57 Chevy. Unfortunately, we never saw that ship again. I sure would like to know what happened to him.

I went back to play in the water. My brother, along with his former adversaries (now his best friends) started building sand castles.