Slip Slidin' Away

My ego and my body both took a little beating this past week. I’m actually feeling pretty good, considering.

A little history: From the first time I rode the Log Flume at Adventureland near Des Moines probably 30 years ago, I was hooked on water rides. Though no fan of roller coasters—too jerky and nausea-inducing—I’ve adored lazy rivers, giant raft slides and wave pools since they became de rigueur back in the eighties. Probably comes from all those childhood summer vacations floating in an inner tube on a Minnesota lake—the bigger the waves, the better.

Thankfully, I’ve managed to imbue my descendants with this value system as well. So I get no resistance when I propose a family trip to the Wisconsin Dells, waterpark capital of the Midwest and possibly the world.  Eight of us were able to make it for four days at the Wilderness resort last week: two daughters, a son-in-law, four grandkids between 4 and 14, and me.

Now I’m not going to pretend I’m a fitness hound or that my physical prowess outshines my daughters’. Indeed, I’ve noticed an alarming global gravity increase in the last several years (for which Congress really should fund a study once the national debt issues are ironed out) which tries to entrench me in the lazy river instead of allowing me to repeatedly bounce up the stairs to the top of the slides.

Will and Gramma, just goofing
around post-race

But when grandson Will, age six, asked me to race him on the racing slides, did I tell him to ask his mom or Aunt Tina instead? No, I did not. Even though I’d already done the wave pool, toilet bowl and hurricane that day--besides some tamer slides--and there are about five flights of steps to the top of the racing slides, I gamely agreed to take him on.

Legions of teens sped past me as I grasped the rail and took my time on the way up to the top platform. Fortunately Will and I were about fourth in line, allowing me some time to recover my breath. I was slightly bemused when I observed that NO ONE ELSE up there was over 50—or maybe even 40. But I really became unglued when I observed the takeoff protocol: one crouches over one’s mat in the flight position, hurtling oneself headfirst into the downhill chute when the lifeguard blows his whistle.

Casting about wildly for a way out of this, I briefly considered going back down the way I’d come up. But hey, I’d never tried this before, and I was not going to disappoint Will, who at the last minute had asked me to let him go ahead of me because “I want to watch you come down, Gramma!” (Apparently I have the reputation of being a bit of a screamer.) No, I’d just develop my own form—no one says it has to be pretty, right? So when it was my turn to line up for the death ride, I lodged myself onto the mat and wedged my feet behind me so I could give a big shove when the whistle blew.



Son-in-law Dave winning his heat against Christina, Jack and Autumn.
You can't see the top but it's WAY high. Believe me.



Now I certainly did not have the time advantage, as precious seconds were wasted as I wriggled, shimmied and heaved myself into the race. But I did have the weight advantage, and baby, I flew down that dang tube, around the curves and into the open! At one point I was bounced so forcefully I thought I’d be thrown into the next lane, but all too soon I was slowing enough that I ventured to open my eyes and see I was sliding under the finish line. Woo-hoo! What a rush! When Will asked me to go again and actually race him this time, I only hesitated a second as I contemplated that same tedious trek to the top.

We took our places at the starting line and he shot forward a good five seconds ahead of me as I performed my stylized takeoff maneuver, but that gravity business again gave me the big advantage and I sailed to the finish well ahead of him. “Gramma, how did you do that?” he wanted to know.

Well, William, we are a competitive family, though I take no pleasure in beating you at this. But Angie and Christina, if scores were being kept, I’m pretty sure my total sliding tally would be roughly double both of yours. Just sayin’.

Oh, Sister ...

Sisters with Mom (on our best behavior)

I’m both a little sister and a big sister. Juvenile, really, to refer to the sibling relationship in these terms at age 57. But though the Wissink siblings—big sister Lois, older brother Jay, me (Bonnie), and baby sister Pam—may appear well-grounded and reasonably mature to the rest of the world, to each other we are still the same bossypants, rat finks, do-nothings and attention hogs we’ve always known.

Oh, nuts. I take that back (Lois, you know you’d make me). My siblings are admirable members of society, each gifted with unique abilities and abounding in wisdom—noble souls, all. Still, the truth is that the family roles we assumed as children are not easily shed.

Take sisters in particular. Lois, eleven years older than I, is used to being large and in charge—an (over?) achiever. Pam, three years younger, is used to being Mom’s coddled pet. I, as the middle sister, am used to being overlooked and underappreciated (you get the picture, right? Wah, wah.)

My earliest memories of Lois are of her competent, self-confident, breezy style—someone worthy of emulation, a natural-born leader. I would peep out the living-room window as she and her bubbly high-school friends stood chattering and laughing after school, showing off their circle skirts and saddle shoes. All of her teachers loved her (to hear Dad tell it). She was Homecoming queen. She got out of doing chores around the house because of her overbooked social calendar. She once baked Jay a birthday cake (probably because Mom was trying to get her to help out) with the words, “Happy birthday, Lard Butt” spelled out in chocolate chips. Dad once extolled the whiteness of Lois’s teeth in my presence, and at age 7 one of my life’s goals became having people notice MY white teeth. Lois’s life was good, probably because she wouldn’t have it any other way.



On the other hand, Pam and I were constant adversaries, vying for recognition, affirmation and the largest piece of Mom’s homemade chocolate cake. Nothing was too trivial to argue about—the number of peas on our plates; whose turn it was to dry the dishes; which of us Emile, the toy poodle, liked better; whether Mickey was cuter than Davey; and the loudness of my stereo during Pam’s clarinet practice. (This last incident escalated to the point of my life being threatened with clarinet assault. I was saved when the instrument in question, being waved about in a malicious manner, came apart and went flying across the room. Hilarious, to my way of thinking.) Of course, from my perspective Pam always got the favored parental treatment because of her smaller, cuter and more devious nature. Maddening though she was, we shared an ornery streak that gave us a lot to laugh about when we could get our parents’ goats. We weren’t bad, just high-spirited at times.

So how has all of this played out, 50 years later? You’d think that, as adults, we’ve all mellowed and learned to assert ourselves when our big sister is bossy, wouldn’t you? 

You’d be wrong.



On a recent visit to Sibley, Iowa, where my mom and Lois both live, Lois lugged two garbage bags of clothes that she no longer wanted into Mom’s house, and insisted I try them on and model each article for her approbation. If I said I didn’t like the way the capri pants fit, she’d say they were flattering on me. If I said I had enough casual black pants already, she argued that you could never have enough. (To her credit, when I said a hideous greenish top was ugly, she didn’t counter.) When I protested that I was flying and couldn’t possibly fit all this into my luggage, she offered an extra bag for me to carry on. When we went over to her house, she bade me go into the basement and paint on newspapers at the ping-pong table with her granddaughter while she altered some of the pants.



The kicker is, I did what she said—all of it. Painted watery daisies in the freezing basement, carried the castoff clothes through two airports. Why didn’t I just tell her no, thanks? Honestly, it didn’t even occur to me until I got home. We just played our respective parts as mindlessly as we’d always done.



And as for Pam? We were chatting on the phone the other day when she mentioned she is mad at me after reading my recent blog post listing a few things I’ve been doing. She was hurt that her May visit to my home (with her friend Barb) didn’t receive a mention.



Pam, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this blog is not The Chicago Tribune or even the Cedar Falls Times. You’re a stoopnagle and my teeth are almost as white as Lois’s. Hahahahaha on you!