Wakeboarding, Instant Expertise and a 78-Year-Old Trooper

It's strange.

After learning to wakeboard a few years ago, I still wasn't confident I knew how to wakeboard. It's not one of those things that feels unnatural. You rip and rush against the wake as water thrashes around you and yet, somehow, you cruise.

I knew I was physically capable of wakeboard, but I felt as though I had cheated the system, or learned how to ride by accident without any real thought. It was like getting an "A" on a test when you didn't study a lick. 

That feeling of insecurity, of my inability, returned last weekend after I spent the weekend at my family's lake house in North Carolina.

As I sat in Lake Gaston awaiting the sudden whip of horsepower from the boat, I feared I was destined for a face full of white foam and lake-water. Did I really know how to wakeboard?

To my surprise, I got up on my first try and everything came back to me like a child getting on a bike after the first day of Spring. 

Here's the dumbest part.

Upon returning to the boat after a few rides through the lake, I immediately got in the boat and started giving advice to some of the newer riders in our group.

Seriously Jonathan? Seriously. 

I don't know what it was, but I felt as though I was granted some infinite wisdom and therefore oblivious to my previous sentiments of insecurity and incompetance. I sat there giving instructions to people after I myself really didn't know much at all.

It's funny, but after realizing the error of my ways and decisively shutting my yapper, I thought of the who gave advice to new high school students in Anne Arundel County. Yes, I asked these kids to give advice so I'm mostly to blame, but it's strange to think that students just out of school have enough wisdom to truly help incoming students.

Sure there are some areas where these kids were experts, but after my moment of instant expertise on the boat in North Carolina, I really started to think. I ultimately decided that in order to truly give advice on a season of life or trying hardship, one needs time and lots of it. 

Looking back and seeing the entire picture of life after it happens usually produces better advice and more level-headedness. I'm no Dr. Phil or anything, but I do find it funny that once we've experience something, we're instant experts and are more than willing to splurge our percipience onto others. 

In Other News

A local woman and her band of rag-tag volunteers work tirelessly to feed the needy, but donations are getting short and they need help. After two knee replacements, 78-yeard-old Jean McHenry and her helpers are committed to keeping this local food pantry open. 

McHenry just won't stop, even if the days get harder with each step, she said.

"I'm mostly bionic now," she joked. 

Fort Meade also got a , the school board released for Anne Arundel County Public Schools and apparenlty, we should be . They're actually some the fastest moving in the entire nation among the country's 25 busiest airports.