Banana Peel Stories - Times When Something Slipped or Went Wrong - But Everyone Landed on Their Feet

These stories are all from the times when we lived on Lake Geneva, Wisconsin and I was in junior high or high school.

1 - First Banana Peel Story - When Something Went Wrong - "Sailing 101 and the Crash Landing"

My folks bought an older refurbished class X 16 ft. sailboat for my brother and I to use and signed us up for sailing lessons. I was in about the 7th grade and B.J. was 2 years younger.

Right after we started lessons my Dad decided to have B.J. and I take the sailboat out while he drove next to us in the Boston Whaler. He thought we'd had enough lessons to know the gist of it, and we thought the same about him. We were all wrong.

The wind came up, it got a little gusty and scarey, and Dad yelled for us to take the sailboat back. I was older and holding onto the tiller then. Holding onto it, not really being a skipper.

As the sailboat headed toward the pier, with a rising wind, gathering speed, I waited for my father to yell over to us what to do since I didn't know how to land a sailboat. I could see the people on the pier looked worried as we got close. I didn't know yet about tacking into the wind and letting the sails luff.

Dad was yelling but in the wind we didn't understand what he said. So we, I, kept going. We saw the sunbathers on the pier get up and run away.

Crash! The bow hit the pier, the front plate and stay broke, the jib, mainsail and wooden mast fell over.

B.J. and I, sensing we were supposed to have done this differently, jumped up and ran off the boat all the way up to the house.

The next week our sailing class got to the part about landing the boat.

2- Second Banana Peel Story - A Rogue Wave, A Runaway Speedboat, and 2 Lifeguards

Lake Geneva had tour boats that created gigantic waves when they went by.

I was about 15 years old. One day I was going all out in the Boston Whaler, full throttle, when one of these waves hit just right at an angle. The boat jumped into the air, I lost my grip on the outboard motor handle, and I flew into the air, the water.

From the water, in my clothes, I saw the outboard motor handle swing over to the other side so the boat began to circle back toward me, really flying. This could have been life threatening.

I heard a voice yell - "Over here!" A Gordy's rental ski boat with 2 cute guys about my age roared in with their 80 horsepower mercs, one guy grabbed my arms and pulled me into the boat, and they roared out before the Boston Whaler could hit.

The Boston Whaler went into a pattern of roaring around in figure 8's, with the outboard motor handle swinging back and forth. Each time the handle swung the whole boat jumped into the air and began a different circle.

A crowd gathered on the shore. My rescuers and I joined them. Someone said "Guess we have to wait till it runs out of gas" but another said "let's foul the prop with a ski tow rope." And that's what they did. By then several water safety patrol boats were there too.

They wanted to know who did this. I tried to blend into the crowd. My father showed up. Oh dear.

I was grounded because it was thought I must have been really hot rodding to get thrown out of the boat. Finally my mom convinced my dad that it really was a freak accident.

My mom was grateful to the 2 high school guys who rescued me. They turned out to be swim team competitors who were lifeguards from Michigan. They were done with their lifeguard jobs because it was almost the end of the summer.

So, my mom invited the 2 lifeguards to stay with us for a week in my brother's room, and B.J. slept on the couch. We all became friends and got along quite well.

My steady boyfriend from high school was over there every single minute possible keeping an eye on my lifeguard/rescuers, who were continuing to keep an eye on me.

They may have thought I would have another boating accident at any moment.

Perhaps they thought since they had saved me that it was their duty to continue to be protective.

So when my boyfriend came over the lifeguard - rescue guys were always there too. I have to admit I enjoyed it.

3 - Third Banana Peel Story - The Iceboat Without a Rudder

My dad was co-owner of a class A iceboat. His friend, the other owner, was on the board for the Stock Exchange in Chicago. I guess they both liked risk.

Lake Geneva was 12 miles long and up to 3 miles wide, so it could accommodate an 80 foot long iceboat that had a telephone pole as it's center. The crew rode in a basket made of super thick ropes at the back of the telephone pole. The tiller controlled the angle of the blades on the ice, which protruded out on the sides. The class A ice boat looked a little like a big cross.

It looked like a quiet day, almost no wind, and my dad couldn't find anyone else to crew on the iceboat that day. The crew's job was to move across the rope basket and use their weight to keep the iceboat from tipping over, somersaulting really, on the ice. I only weighted about 110.

The giant telephone pole had a huge mast and sail. We pushed the iceboat to get it going, then hopped in. Everything was ok until the tiller broke.

The wind had come up. We were in a rope basket at the back of an 80 ft telephone pole with a sail full of wind on a lake with mostly a rocky shore. It only takes a little wind to go really fast.

And..we were going really fast. "We'll have to use our weight to try to steer it into the wind' my dad shouted. He released the mainsail sheet to let the boom swing out and try to let air out of the sail, but we were still moving fast, the runners hissing. We leaned way out on one side but the boat seemed to be heading right for the rocks. The runners weren't responding to the weight change.

We went to one side of the crew's basket and half jumped to the other side to throw some real weight into it. The rocks were getting closer and it would be like a car crash, only on ice.

Slowly the runners responded and we began to circle away from the shore. The iceboat kept circling and ran into the wind and eventually it slowed and stopped.

We looked over at the shore but no one was around. My dad said, "Don't ever tell your mother about this."