Filthy Water Plus Skiers Equals A Hot Afternoon

Sunday's water ski show had all the ingredients for a pus estival festival: there was soda (no beer), sun shades provided by WBZ), shorts, a skier on a kite, clasping lovers and hugging mothers.

The sky, however, was milk of magnesia; the water was nominous slate. And the water was the Charles River, which everyone seemed to forget. One boy with a thick Cambridge brogue, remembered that the Charles is the most polluted thing this side of Central Square.

"Look," he said, "they're careful not to get in the water." Careful, but not successful. One skier, a stand-in, poor kid, for someone who had cut his leg, managed to start in the middle of the river without any skis. According to announcer, it took incredible strength and split-second e.g. To get up that way, he had to stick his whole head of water, Some stunt.