Vincent worked the upper shack of the Hornet Chair on Saturday night. The radio kept Vincent in good company and the small space heater assured a welcome warmth. The familiar lilt of Pink Floyd's lament, Wish You Were Here, began to softly fill the lift shack and slowly embrace Vincent in a reminiscence of his father.
Forty four years ago, Vincent finished skating the rink at the base of the bunny hill at Black Mountain in Jackson, New Hampshire and watched his friends ski, perhaps with a longing that was readily apparent to his dad. Vincent and his parents made regular weekend forays to their friends' Bartlett, New Hampshire ski chalet. Vincent loved these trips up north. They offered welcome respites from the certain, concrete sameness of Brockton in the winter. His folks' friends, who had three kids of their own, owned a couple of canary yellow Ski Doos and Vincent loved the snowmobile rides and chumming with the gaggle of kids from neighboring chalets. There was candlepin bowling, too, at which Vincent was adept, in nearby Conway. t was on that sunny Saturday afternoon that Vincent's father bought him his first pair of skis, a pair of new all-black Head Standards, from the Jack Frost Shop in North Conway, New Hampshire, 44 years ago. His father prefaced the purchase with the simple request, "I'll buy skis for you if you promise to use them." Vincent promised he would and unlike the promise to practice he reneged on shortly after his father bought him a shiny new Selmer trumpet,
Vincent took to skiing with a fervor right from the get go. That evening, after skiing off of the J-Bar beginner's area at nearby Black Mountain, Vincent traversed awkwardly on his new skis in a snowplow stem christie down the snow covered dirt roads that connected the 70 or so cozy gingerbread-trimmed chalets behind the Linderhof Hotel in Bartlett. The other kids laughed at Vincent's antics and he didn't care (he secretly loved the attention). Besides, he was determined to become a better skier so he figured he had to practice as much as possible. He just loved sliding on his skis. There was a exhilarating freedom in it that he had never felt before.
Vincent's devotion to skiing grew in leaps and bounds. Killy became his hero. The sexy blonde Lange Girl "Soft Inside" poster adorned his bedroom wall along with collages of Killy.
Summer physical ski conditioning soon followed. Vincent purchased his first Bongo Board and learned to squat with weights while he balanced. 360s came soon thereafter. He even watched Armstrong's moonwalk while rocking to and fro on the board. Vincent attended ski shows with a fervor that rivaled those on a pilgrimage to Mecca. And he always returned from those shows with two overflowing bags laden with brochures, stickers and schwag for all things ski. He impatiently devoured Warren Miller episodes on a weekly PBS series on skiing-reruns were always welcome. Vincent even regularly called the Aspen toll-free number to hear conditions on Snowmass, Aspen Mountain, Aspen Highlands and Buttermilk even though he lacked the wherewithal to ski there. Vincent watched Downhill Racer yet again, waxing a simpatico connection with Robert Redford's loner-champion. In fact, any movie that featured skiing Vincent had to see. He bought better skis, boots and equipment. He bought a kit with a waxing iron and began prepping his own skis. He subscribed to Ski and Skiing magazines. He reread, "The Encyclopedia of Skiing," again. Subsidized by his parents and elderly working class aunts and uncles, Vincent traveled to Wengen, Switzerland and skied on the hallowed ground of the Lauberhorn downhill course. He knew all of the TV commercials that featured skiing. Wayne Wong jet turns loomed large in his frequent classroom skiing daydreams. He even started jumping off of rocks and man-made kickers, even though his skiing chops were somewhere between stem christie and full parallel turns. Vincent just loved the feeling of floating, falling and accelerating in gravity's good grace. And what Vincent lacked in talent, instruction and style he more than made up with in passion, perseverance and practice.
Vincent's father, in buying those skis for his youngest son, had given Vincent a gift that would prevail in joy through the present, yet have consequences that would shape his son's life in ways neither father or son could have imagined in the Jack Frost ski shop that winter's afternoon in 1968...to be continued.
Wish You Were Here
So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell,
Blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
And did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange
A walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl,
Year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here.
© EMI Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
