Sunday Fun-Day brings back Goliath memories

BY Aprile McKinnon

Hope everyone had a fantastic and safe Fourth of July. Canyon Lake is known for Sunday Fun-Days and this last Sunday seemed to be a great start into the summer. The heat was blazing and the boats were on the water trying to soak up the much-awaited fun in the sun.

I have some of the fondest memories ever of getting out on the water with friends. The music ringing through the lake, the smell of sunscreen, and ice chests full of summer goodies and thirst-quenching drinks.

I love to play jokes on people and because I dish it out, I often have to take the repercussions of someone giving it back to me.

I never really was one who liked the water much, in fact I have some crazy stories that have steered me away from the water. I especially don’t like being in the water that I can’t see through.

When I first went out on the causeway years ago and experienced for the first time how boaters tie up their boats and then jump in the water, just hanging out together, I really wasn’t interested in getting in. I was extremely afraid of the big giant fish my friends warned me about that would surface up on the water while they fed it Doritos. It was huge. My friends called him “Goliath.”

Goliath the Fish. He would eat chips right off the boat as he surfaced out on the causeway. Photo by Chris Wiles

They told me stories about how women had their belly rings sucked on by that giant fish and that some even felt Goliath suck their toes. Needless to say, this did not make me want to get in the water. The summer days grew hotter and hotter and I was going through a time in my life where I was trying to face my fears.

One Sunday Fun-Day I drank a little liquid courage and my friends encouraged me to jump in the water and see how wonderful it is to just float. There were a lot of us that day, and I had really gained trust in these new friends. I put on a life jacket in true diaper form, and jumped in the water.

I remember the feeling of my chest almost freezing as I gasped for air and tried to make myself relax. My anxiety started to get the best of me. Just as I started to settle in and stop panicking, something beneath the waters of the causeway grabbed my big toe.

“Goliath,” I screamed, as panic started to kick in. I paddled as fast as I could to the boat. Everyone was laughing behind me. My friend Arno was laughing so hard tears were running down his cheeks. That’s when I knew I had been tricked. Arno was Goliath.

It took me a long time to get back into the water again, but once I released my fears of that giant fish lurking beneath my body, I learned to enjoy those wonderful moments with my friends as the sun grew hotter and the days grew shorter. Summer fun in the sun, Canyon Lake style.