The Joy Of Being A Middle-Aged Boy

The leisurologist and his cohorts are always trying to expand the outer limits of the profession of fun. When there's wind, but not enough for windsurfing, what's a boy to do? I call myself a boy, because men have jobs and talk about RRSPs, power tools and organized sports. To make my point, the other day a friend asked a group of us to name six members of the Montreal Canadiens hockey team. Six? I couldn't name one, though when someone else said 'Saku Koivu', it did ring a bell. I didn't mention that I thought Saku Koivu was an island in the South Pacific Kingdom of Tonga. Tonga...that sounds like a place to have some fun!

My friend Dave popped by on Friday afternoon and was looking for some excitement. Dave has a real job but since he does shift work, he often has blocks of time that are wide open. In many ways Dave is more of a leisurologist than I am, if you could just ignore his periodic enslavement at the mill. Let's just say that he maximizes his fun time in an admirable fashion.

Typically we'd windsurf together but Friday didn't deliver a suitable wind speed or direction, though there was wind. We decided to try skatesailing. Skatesailing is a blend of windsurfing and skateboarding. All you need is a puff of wind, a longboard, a windsurfing rig and a suitably smooth piece of pavement. A parking lot is the ideal location but where are you going to find a parking lot in the greater metropolitan area of Cambridge-Narrows? There are none except at the Cambridge-Narrows school, but that piece of paving, though smooth in its youth, now has Keith Richards' complexion (fissured, fractured and just plain nasty).

Dave and I decided that the road to the Gagetown ferry was worth a try. It's a quiet country road much of the time, though there was a steady stream of traffic on Friday. I loved to watch the looks we got when people saw us skatesailing.

"Well I'll be darned! Look at them there kids on their crazy contraptions."

There was a lot of Gumby-necking going on when people drove past. Not everyone understands the concept of frivolous fun, particularly when carried out by a middle-aged leisurologist and his post adolescent, shift-working crony. Most of the gawkers probably had never seen anyone skatesail before. They probably couldn't name six famous skatesailers, let alone one. But I'll bet they know a lot about RRSPs, power tools and Saku Koivu.