Vincent found the Ski Bradford fine wale corduroy to be artisan tailored, sumptuously soft and impeccably comfortable to carve. It was truly worthy of the appellation, le cord du roi.
Make Snow And They Will Come
Vincent did the math: 18 Buses with a conservative average of 25 pre-paid children per bus, each with roughly $12 to spend on snacks. Factor in 20º temperatures with wind gusts of up to 20mph and you're selling a heck of a lot of hot chocolate, pizza slices and french fry cups. Smiles abound everywhere.
Your Guide To The Nine Stages Of New England Skiing
1. Denial: 7:45am Somewhere after the Hooksett, NH Toll
“Hey, I just saw some behind those trees. It’s gonna’ be great skiing today!”
2. Denial: 8:45am Lincoln, NH one minute from Loon.
“ Man, they really keep the streets clear here. No worries, they’ll be plenty on the hill. I can feel it.”
3. Denial: 9:05am Governor Adams Lodge, Loon Mountain
“All closed? I’m sure they’re all open today.”
4. Denial: 9:07am Kancamagus Express Quad
“It’s gonna’ soften’ up real soon.”
5. Denial: 9:08am Kancamagus Express Quad
“It’s going to clear up real soon. It can’t be foggy and frozen, can it?”
6. Denial: 11:49am Kancamagus Express Quad
“See, it is getting softer. From what I can hear, edges now sound like they’re sawing soft pine instead of hard oak.”
7. Denial: 12:53pm Kancamagus Express Quad
“I told ya’ so. The rain is making everything softer, including my hardshell. This fog will soon be history for sure.”
8. Denial: 1:43pm Upper Rumrunner
“I really think the rain is really letting up a bit.”
“Ok, my underwear is saturated. Let’s go home.”
Wish You Were Here
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.
My Morning Commute
Everything Is Illuminated
"You're either on the bus or off the bus."
Vincent left the parking lot after his shift, passing by the 18 school buses that had delivered hundreds of school children to play on the slopes of that hill in Bradford, Massachusetts. Two metaphors came to mind. Two sides of the same coin. Vincent just had to smile.
Bus Metaphor #1-Thanks to Ken Kesey
On the Great Bus Trip of 1964, Ken Kesey had a problem. Every time they had to stop for gas or something, some of the Pranksters would wander off and whenever it was time to leave, at least one Prankster could not be found. Hence the metaphor, "You're either on the bus or off the bus." Of course, no outsider had any idea what Kesey was talking about when he said that, because you had to have been on the bus that summer to get it.
Group consciousness was very important to the Pranksters. The idea was to put individual differences aside and work as a group, an attuned group. Those who weren't attuned were seen as rocking the boat, disrupting the trip. These were the people who were considered "off the bus." The ones who were attuned to the group consciousness, those who did their share of the work, and smile rather than pout, these were the ones who were "on the bus." Thus, the literal meaning of "You are either on the bus or off the bus" is "You are either attuned to the group consciousness or you are not attuned to the group consciousness."
Copyright © 1995, 1997, Colin Pringle
Bus Metaphor #2-Thanks to Anthony de Mello
"And here is a parable of life for you to ponder on: A group of tourists sits in a bus that is passing through gorgeously beautiful country; lakes and mountains and green fields and rivers. But the shades of the bus are pulled down. They do not have the slightest idea of what lies beyond the windows of the bus. And all the time of their journey is spent in squabbling over who will have the seat of honor in the bus, who will be applauded, who will be well considered. And so they remain till the journey's end."
Anthony de Mello, The Way To Love
Kids Of All Ages Love Sammy the Ski Safety Stapler. You'll Love Him, Too.
Vincent entertained the others for hours on end with the playful banter and antics of the adorable Sammy. Many of whom they entertained weren't even born when Senor Wences enthralled millions of viewers watching The Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday nights.
The Love Shack
Lift Attendant View in the Upper Hornet Shack at Ski Bradford on Saturday night.
Vincent never imagined he be sitting where he was at age 56. However, it was revealed to Vincent sometime during his 4-hour shift that he was, in fact, to paraphrase James Thurber who had paraphrased Red Barber, "sitting in the catbird seat."
Chair after chair passed by him with smiling fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, grandmothers, grandfathers, brothers and sisters, teen angels and teen anarchists, boyfriends and girlfriends, young, old, in-between, graceful skiers and not-so-graceful skiers--all united in the simple play of sliding down the snow under the lights on a cold New England night. And Vincent was fortunate to find himself in the middle of it all. Steeped in joy. Embraced by love. What a place to be. Thanks.