For our 7th Wedding Anniversary, I decided to do something wild and crazy and bought my husband a brand new Tracker bass boat. It had to do with the “Seven Year Itch” superstition in a marriage and I thought I’d give him something to scratch the itch with! However, I wanted it to be a surprise for him (I love surprising him!) and it took some extra thought and planning but I pulled it off flawlessly.
I enlisted the help of my father in buying the Tracker bass boat and then had him tow it to his house until it was time to reveal it to my husband. On our wedding anniversary, which was a Sunday that year, I made reservations for a nice brunch at a fancy restaurant. I needed to make sure that we were gone for a least a couple of hours. While we were enjoying our brunch my Dad brought the Tracker to our house and parked it right in front of our driveway with a gigantic red bow attached to it along with a banner that said “Happy Anniversary”.
After brunch we headed home. Our house was at the end of the street and the Tracker had been positioned so that it was broadside. We turned the corner onto our street and my husband, Barry, stopped the car in the middle of the street and said “Look at that! Some idiot parked a Tracker right in front of our driveway!!” I started laughing. Then he saw the big red bow and the banner. He looked at me, then at the boat, then at me, then at the boat. At last he asked me “Who’s boat is that?” Through my laughter I said “It’s yours sweetheart! Happy Anniversary!” I can’t repeat what he said next! Then a little tear of happiness rolled down his cheek.
Now, Barry has never known to be at a loss for words but he couldn’t speak for about an hour! We climbed up on the boat and popped the cork on a bottle of champagne I had hidden just for the occasion. We sat there for a while, all the time no words from Barry. I loved it! He just gazed at the boat with disbelief the entire time, shaking his head. When he finally got his voice back we called up our best friends, Leslie & Randy Granger and had them come over, then we popped the cork on another bottle of champagne. The four of us sat in the boat until dark planning where we were going to take it the next weekend.
Barry has enjoyed telling the story of how his wife gave him a Tracker bass boat for an anniversary present to every fisherman he has a chance to tell it to! And he has had to tell many of them no, I didn't have a sister like me!
Can’t tell you how many wonderful times we had in that Tracker bass boat over the years. Lots of fun stories! I’ll tell you some of them later. Like the time we lost the boat. . .