Vintage Thompson Water Skis

About 15 years ago Al and I took a road trip up to Al's mom's lake place. Al's grandfather originally built the place, and Al had spent all the summers of his childhood there. During the visit he chanced upon the water skis he had learned to ski on. They dated back to the 50s and 60s. While Al is normally not sentimental about stuff, it was clear that these skis were different. So when he asked if we could use them somewhere, it seemed the skis needed to find a home with us. Not to ski on as that would be the water skiing equivalent of running with scissors. The bindings were shot, an invitation for an emergency room visit.

Since our decorating style was casual, we decided to use them as wall art.

The vintage Thompson combo skis now hang in our kitchen. The slalom ski of the pair has a huge metal fin. The other has dual shallow wooden fins. These skis are stable, to say the least. But that stability comes at a very steep cost: they turn slowly and with all the excitement of a cruise ship. The logos, on the other hand, are fabulous. Pure atomic mid-century modern design. Very, very cool.

The Thompson combos were not the only vintage Thompson items from the cottage. There is also a Thompson disk. It is large. It has no grips or padding. It was a favorite ski toy of the era.

At first we were puzzled about what we could do with it. Then it hit us that it was the size of a table. We scoured some local thrift shops for a base, settling finally on base from a sturdy mid-century patio table. Shortly after that we chanced upon 50s metal and curved wood dinette chairs being thrown away. We cleaned them up and upholstered them in canvas from an old jet ski cover. Thus we acquired our screen porch dining table and chairs.

In my next posts I'll show you the rest of the skis from the old cottage.