Random Thoughts
FEATURING
Ski Bummery, Tahoe & Alicia
Rambunctious Trio of Web Blogs
Addison, The Reno Rambler, A Cycling Blog
Scorn Laws,
Sights of Paris,
One Perfect Day, 8 October 1956, Yankee Stadium,
Learning the Art of The Café
If I Kept A Diary
Sights of Paris - Odd, Personal, Famous
Commentary unnecessary. What I saw, and what I want to remember.
SIGHTS VIDEO, about 2 minutes. click here.
Some places you may not recognize on video:
Doorway to apartment of Eric Satie, Montmartre.
Tent in square where Montmartre artists work - singing group called Seafarers.
Doorway of Le Petit Palais.
Heart in window by a wonderful artist, Joana Vasconcelos, I ran across in a gallery not far from Pompidou. Her Web Page is at www.joanavasconcelos.com.
Festive lights on Rue Descartes near the Sorbonne.
Friends from Paris, Buenos Aires and Bogatá.
Ferris wheel in Place de la Concorde, being dismantled, workers half way up wheel.
Glass structure Mitterand National Library and new pedestrian bridge in honor of Simone de Beauvoir.
ONE PERFECT DAY, 8 OCTOBER 1956, YANKEE STADIUM
One of the memorable events of my life occurred on 8 October 1956. Serious baseball fans of an older generation know that date---Don Larsen‘s perfect game against the Brooklyn Dodgers in Yankee Stadium. And I was there in the bleachers. How I got there was pure happenstance.
I was an indifferent undergraduate at Drew University in Madison NJ. I was in my senior year, and quite honestly I have almost recollection of the courses I was enrolled in. I do remember I was walking across campus to the gym where I spent more time than in class when I ran into Doc Young, a legendary figure on the Drew. He was the Greek/Latin prof but more importantly he was the baseball coach. I don’t how he addressed me when we ran into each other, but I obviously remember what transpired---an invitation to go to NYC to see Yankees and Dodgers in the World Series. I doubt if it took me more than nanosecond to decide. I had been a baseball fan since I could remember, and I had three teams. Why three, well, my first team was the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Bucs, Rosie Roswell and Bob Prince, the worst team imaginable. My friends and I, who played baseball on dirt lots and in neighborhood streets all summer as well as All-Star Baseball with the spinner and the round hole-in-the-middle cards with hits and outs all year, rooted for the Bucs, but we also rooted for other teams in the National and American Leagues. My “other” teams were the Bums and the Cleveland Indians. (I had also seen Bob Feller and Satchel Page pitch in the company of such legends as Lou Boudreau, Joe Gordon, Jim Hegan, et al.) So going to Yankee Stadium for a World Series game required no extended thought on my part. I said yes, went back to my room for some things like my wallet and met Doc somewhere either on campus or at the train station, and off we went. We arrived at Penn Station, grabbed a subway to the Bronx, ambled up to the ticket window somewhere around noon, bought 2 bleacher seats (2.10 each) and something to eat and then entered the hallowed grounds of Yankee Stadium. Can anyone today imagine walking up to the ticket window an hour or two before a World Series game and buying 2 tickets?
My recollection is that October 8 was a sunny day, warm enough that I wasn’t wearing a coat or a sweater. The crowd around us was friendly but predominately Yankee fans. We found bleacher space about half way up between center and left field---Mickey Mantle was often in front of us. I had no idea who Don Larsen was. I certainly knew more about the Dodger line-up than the Yankee line-up: Peewee Reese, Roy Campanella, Gil Hodges, Duke Snider and of course the great Jackie Robinson. Sal Maglia, who had beat Whitey Ford in the Game 1, was now pitching again in the Game 5. But I certainly knew the Yankee stars, even though I didn’t follow the team closely: in addition to Ford there were Enos Slaughter, Billy Martin and Hank Bauer. (Phil Rizzuto had been released a few weeks earlier, but I had seen him play before in Cleveland.) I fully expected the Dodgers to win, but I don’t remember that I was anti-Yankee in their own ballpark. As so often happens to me when I go to baseball parks I just enjoy being there. I don’t remember which team Doc favored, but he too was at ease in a way I’d never seen him back on campus where he was sort like a bulldog.
It was a low scoring game, 2-0, with Mantle hitting a home run with a runner on base in the early innings. I don’t recall where the ball landed if it landed in the bleachers near us. Mantle also made a not-so-easy catch in front of us that prevented a runner from getting on base. The middle innings had some plays that bought the crowd to life, at least the crowd in the bleachers, but I don’t recall that I or those around me were as riveted on what was happening on the field as we would become. By the late innings, say the 7th, it began to dawn on the bleacher crowd what was happening: No Dodger had yet reached 1st base. From then on an eerie silence engulfed the stadium as each Dodger batter came to the plate followed by shouts of relief and joy as another out was registered. By the eighth inning it was abundantly clear that this game could be momentous. And in the top of the ninth, 3 outs away, Doc and I and everyone around us stood more than sat. But in those final moments, as I try to dredge up memories now long dissolved, the idea of a perfect game had trumped everything, and team affiliations and the rivalries that they had spawned were lost temporarily in the moment. For many I suspect, but not for all. In my own world I remember thinking despite my loyalties to my beloved Bums let the Yanks do it. A betrayal, to be sure. (A betrayal made permanent the next year when they moved to California, although years later I would move to Tahoe and fall in love with CA too.) I’d never been a Yankee fan, and yet I was cheering each out in the top of the 9th: a fly ball, a ground ball (no less than by Campanella) and finally that called third strike---from the bleachers who could tell if it were high or not---and the 27-27 game (I learned later with 97 pitches) was history. I cheered and clapped like a Yank (Doc was not the kind you‘d throw a hug on), even though I was still a Bum as well. It was about baseball and not about affiliations. After some time just hanging out, shaking hands with fans I didn’t know, uttering the usual “Can you believe it?”, Doc and I headed to midtown, boarded the train to Madison and bid adieu somewhere on the campus. On the train ride I realized that Doc could recall far more about the game than I could. A bad sign for the future. And now 50 years plus later I feel more like Alberto Gonzales than Doc Young---I don’t recall (worse than Gonzales because I’m a trained historian!). The other embarrassing “I don’t recall” is what did I say if anything to my classmates, my lovely girl friend, my professors---to anyone upon my return?
More than once, however, in the last 50 years I’ve told the story. I was there. The scans are the front and back of the ticket, which I carried folded up in my wallet for decades. Even without the recollections I might now wish I had, I have enough etched in my memory to tell a good story about a memorable day that some listeners have admittedly been skeptical about. Not me. I knew I was there.
LEARNING THE ART OF THE CAFÉ
Paris is my favorite city and Café des Philosophes my favorite cafe. One a rainy, Friday night, while walking through Le Marais in search of a place to eat (not easy to find a table), I was walking along rue Vieille du Temple when I came across Les Philosophes. I loved the name to begin with, but once inside I knew I had found my oasis. Actually I was not looking for a cafe, having in the previous two months eaten some exceptional cuisine at other cafes and restaurants, but all at once the clientele, ambiance, wine, service, noise and of course food made me decide I had been searching just for this. My desert was a cheesecake that was memorable, and I cannot remember any other cheesecake in life being memorable. In fact most cheesecakes are firm, heavy, tasteless and devoid of interest. This cheesecake was the opposite of all that, and I refuse to count how many of them I ate over the next several years. In one evening this venture of mine, not only to live in Paris but also to become a part of the community, took a transcendent leap.
For the next several years almost every late afternoon I drank an espresso and once or twice a week I took a meal there. I will not attempt to recount the many other food memories. The disappointments were few and far between. The area of Le Marais is full of artists, writers and travelers who often occupied the tables of Les Philosophes as long with many French families who lived in the neighborhood. It did not take long for the serveurs to recognize I had become a regular. I often showed up with a book, newspaper or manuscript to read, and that provoked some wry remarks, such as "Richard, the cafe is just not for reading." Yes, like many Americans, I found it hard just to sit and watch. I had to learn that the street had as much to offer as the printed word. I did not give up reading, but I certainly spent more time observing what was around me. Street life in Le Marais is worth observing, and there is no better place than Les Philosophes. Everyone who visited me in Paris experienced Les Philosophes and invariably when I asked where should we eat tonight, the answer was always Les Philosophes. So we did, night after night. Life inside and outside on the sidewalk and the street plus a wonderful menu often turned our meals into an extended stay.
There were many high points. Unfortunately I have forgotten some of names of the serveurs and hostesses, but among the serveurs I still remember affectionately were Sébastien, Farid, Jean-Pierre, Robert and Alexandre. One truly memorable experience involved Sébastien who saw me coming down the street and by the time I got to the Les Philosophes my espresso was waiting for me at an outside table. How cool is that!
And finally the restrooms. You go even if you do not have to. Checkout the photos on the website.
IF I KEPT A DIARY
Dear Diary
After my third session with my new therapist, I’m feeling worse than before the first app’t. Friends had urged me back into therapy. The problem, we all agreed, was odd. I meet women and sometimes date them only then to have them disappear. Not disappear, as out of existence, no, just out of the range of my existence.
Being the intellectual types we are my friends and I had to ask why? After pruning the list – inarticulate, odiferous, nasty, poor, impotent, earnest, whiny to name a few – the conclusion – rather what the hell do we know – was, see a shrink. I couldn’t afford a big shrink so I made an app’t with little shrink.
I explained the problem while sitting in a chair with a tilt, sort of like the bench I use for my pec routines. I did not feel at home, but I explained the best I could.
The first question, “So! Haven’t you ever disappeared in order to get a woman out of your life?”
I had to think, and before I could think too far into the past, I heard, “Live with it.”
“Well, that’s what I’d been doing.” I said “thank you for the support.” and then I added &ldquo:there isn’t any reason to carry on with these discussion since I’ll just keep doing what I’ve been doing.”
“Whoa,” she said. “I want the details. Next time and probably the time after that and again after that, you’ll tell me about the disappearances, the how and wherefores.”
The wherefores, what the hell were wherefores.
I began to dig through my memory bank and volumes of journals. I came up with a short list–the most curious stories – in my head for the next session. And when the time rolled around, I started with, “How about a woman, 30 years younger and seated next to me at a local bar, she turned toward me and said ’You have the most beautiful blue eyes I’ve ever seen.’ I confess I melted. We actually became friends, purely platonic. We had coffee a couple of times, she told about her pain–filled life and we agreed to keep in touch. Except we didn’t or she didn’t. I sent a few emails and then gave up.”
“And what did you conclude?”
“That if I continued I’d become a pain in the ass. Actually she may not belong on the list because I wasn’t upset,just curious. Also I just liked what she said.”
“OK, not important. Another story.”
“Well,” red–faced as I often am when talking about these things, I explained: “I spent time with a woman I’d known a long time, not a platonic affair, when one night she said to me,’ you’re taking me places I’ve never been,’ and after my departure I never heard from her again.”
“Ah–ha! This needs attention.”
“OK.”
“And what did you do to make her say that?”
“I can’t think of anything. I thought, she often said, she was having a good time.”
“Think.”
“Can you give me a hint what she might have meant? Maybe then I can figure out an explanation.”
“You can’t figure out what it means? Think about it, you are taking me”
“I have thought about it, and I have no explanation. That’s why I’m here.”
“We’ve certainly identified one problem you have–you can’t figure things out.”
“But isn’t that's why people need therapists?”
“Next week, same time and bring another list.”
And then my therapist disappeared, regrettably just into the adjoining room.
The third week rolled around and there I was again with my new mental list.
“Let’s get to it.”
“OK, ’you’re so darn cute, my dear,’ was really touching because this woman, young, smart and clever, who said that was spoken for. We had known each other a while, and our emails were full of banter and sarcasm, but we never strayed over the line–in fact we lived thousands of miles apart. I replied to darn cute, she replied to my darn–cute reply and then she disappeared. I had no replies to my emails, and that was that.”
“You left it dangling?”
“I left it dangling? What’s dangling?”
“Her affection for you, and you didn’t board the first flight and reply to her in person?”
“Was I supposed to? What did she say to make me think I should do that?”
“This is worse than not figuring things out–you need to learn a lover’s language.”
“Darn cute is some kind of symbolic language?”
“She didn’t just say cute, she said darn cute my dear. That’s an invitation and you muffed it. Next.”
“I only have one more, and it’s the most painful. Again a younger women with whom I had palled around with (and her boy friends) for about a decade. She often disappeared for a few weeks or even a month, but she almost always got back in touch. My feelings toward her were conflicted; I wished for more than a friendship but remained a perfect gentleman. What made that difficult was that several times she wrote me brief notes that could be read as love–letters or –notes. I always replied discreetly. For a while we lived in the same town and then we moved to different places miles apart. Letters, emails and phone call allowed us to stay in touch until total silence on her end. I know her whereabouts, I’ve always send her a B–Day greeting, and a few years I went so far as to write her and ask her why I’d been shut out. No response. Despite all this, I’m utterly and devotedly fond of her.”
“Time’s up. I have a different plan for next week.”
And so do I, dear diary, after writing all this down, so do I.
RENO RAMBLER: A CYCLING BLOG PLUS MORE
I know nothing about modern-day cycling. As a kid I rode my Schwinn everywhere, even four miles to my grandmother's farm and back. But it didn't carry over into my adult life. I did own a Harley-Davidson 1200 Sport for a while, and I knew quickly I was about to maim myself for life. I did it for a lady -. It never worked out.
This cycling site is good for the photos alone. Disclosure: Addison is a friend. He is an avid rider in the Sierras where I used to live. He has done those fierce mountain rides more than once. So full of pain I can't bear to watch them. Addison also likes movies and funky music, neither of which I can talk to him about. (He does like Tom Waites, and I understand that.) It is strictly a friendship based on food and booze - actually just martinis and champagne - and my recognition that he has a-hell-of-a-good eye for photos.
Cycling in Copenhagen. One of many photographs plus many videos available on Addison's Web Page.
I will add that when I was living in Paris in 2003, the Tour de France on the final day came through my neighborhood. The route, if I remember correctly, was Place de Concorde, Voie Georges Pompidou, Boulevard Henry IV, Bastille, Rue Saint-Antoine, Rue de Rivoli and Place de Concorde. The Tour made this circuit at least twice. My apartment was on the corner of Rue de Rivoli and Rue de la Tacherie. I stood on the corner with my neighbors, wine in hand, and watched in utter amazement as scores of cyclists, more like a horde (no idea the exact number) crammed together about two inches apart and peddling fast (although my French neighbor in typical style described it as ne pas aller lent) along Rivoli back to Concorde. In the middle, of course, was the yellow-shirted Lance Armstrong, without his glass of champagne, every bit of which he deserved, and which he and his team had been drinking earlier in telecasts from Paris outskirts. I was not so impressed that I ran out and bought a bike; sitting remains my great sport. I was impressed enough, though, to acknowledge it here all these years later.
You can blog with Addison, so you flat-landers who idealize cycling at 6,000 to 7,000 feet through the splendid Sierras around Lake Tahoe, here's your man. I'll be happy to fix the martinis.
Addison's Blog at reno-rambler.blogspot.com
The Scorn Laws
On Saturday we all woke up to a new set of laws-the Scorn Laws - that took effect at midnight the day before.
The Scorn Laws? Who had ever heard of them?
We hadn't, but sitting on the steps of our adjoining brownstones where we sat most every Saturday morning, I drinking Peet's and she drinking soft water to prevent the onset of wrinkles of something like that - she once told me that coffee was worse than sun rays in promoting wrinkles - we sat there reading about the Scorn Laws.
Where did they come from, I asked.
They were attached to a bill, unbeknownst to most members of Congress and for once not requested by the White House, she read.
We were both thinking without saying, once attached almost impossible to unattach.
So from what I've read the law is aimed at imported scorn, not self-scorn, I said.
Imported scorn - is that how I speak to you or is it something different? she asked.
I think it means you can heap scorn on yourself but not on me because from my perspective if you are heaping scorn on me I see it as imported from you, I said, then adding, I can foresee great gaps in our normal conversations.
Maybe they're really concerned about scorn from France or from the South or from evangelical Christians? She volunteered somewhat wistfully.
It doesn't make that clear, although look at the long list of words that can get you into trouble: contemptible, mocking, disdainful, derisive, scathing, insulting, ridiculing, I repeated, along with all the qualities or conditions that manifest those behaviors.
And here's a quote from Shakespeare: "Thou. . . art confederate with a damned packe, To make a loathsome abject scorne of me. . . ." Perhaps the law has some validity, she opined.
They had once been lovers, but the sex between them provoked so much scorn they decided to be friends instead.
Do you suppose if these laws had been on the books when we were fucking. . . , I began.
Don't go there. I imported all the scorn I could found, from France and across the street and outer space, to express my distaste having your body on top of me, no law could have saved us, she shouted.
But according to the law. . . , I tried again.
Change the subject. You were just as scornful as I was, she shot back.
They read on.
Do you remember how scornful the critics were of your last show - the inverted canvas - and you made thousands. Under the law imported critic derision not permitted, therefore no reason for anyone to pay you any attention, right? I queried offhandedly.
That was not scorn but misinformation, she declared without taking her eyes off the page.
Need I remind you, she continued, You imported so much scorn into every conversation and conference that you are left virtually unemployable. Doubtful this law could have saved you or should have.
I tried to ignore her scornful remark, not knowing whether it would be considered as imported or natural or whatever the opposite of imported was.
Enforcement should be interesting, I offered, You tell on me and I tell on you. No money in the budget to organize a bureaucracy.
Silence as we finished the article.
In the words of Sir Henry Neville, screw the authorities mightily and munificently! I proclaimed with gusto and pride.
She pulled out her cell and with the crooked smile I had come to fear she began to dial the number in the article.
Rambunctious Trio of Web Blogs
A friend of a friend enjoys creating web blogs. At last count there were three. The latest is an Obama site. I'm not a fan of the Clintons, and I've certainly warmed to Obama and will definitely support him. I've refrained from expressing political opinions on my own pages. I may in the future but not yet. I've been more interested in writing about other things. I'' a political liberal, and my liberalism, which I've stuck with despite the silly season launched by Reagan and his backward-looking stalwarts, is still too far out of the main stream to have much appeal except my kids and a few friends. I fear I' I'll be preaching to the choir, already badly depleted. I'm proud, patriotically so without wearing flag pins and spouting God Bless America - hallelujah for John Prine's all those flags won't get you into Heaven - that I've remained true to a basic political legacy that has worked. To cite another legacy - the obverse, I'm afraid - like my father, who said with conviction that he'd never voted for a Democrat unless by accident, I can say with equal conviction I've never voted for a Republican unless the same conditions obtained.
Lo and behold, I've done what I said I wouldn't do, again.
Actually the site of the trio that most interests me is a site for lovers of clutter. I'm just the opposite, although I'm not sure I want to be. But I am and have been forever. My DNA says, keep it neat minute by minute so you don't have to spend hours later making it neat. Perhaps clutterers never make it neat. I remember a conversation at a cocktail party years ago (do people still plan or attend cocktail parties?) when a woman told me that neither she nor her husband ever made their bed. Why waste the time was justification. I was momentarily stumped, and then I knew my response: a good night's sleep required a well-made bed. I do sleep well, and I still spend more minutes in one day, I suspect, than the lady or her husband spent in a lifetime making and remaking my bed until it's just right. I remember reading somewhere that clutterers were better lovers.
Alas, another missed opportunity in a life with lots of misses.
Check them out just for the hell of it and blog with Tracy if you're in the mood:
"More Things Muslim Than Obama", go to www.moremuslimthanobama.com/moremuslimthanobama/"Reno and Its Discontents", go to www.renodiscontent.com/
"Clutter Love, Organization Ain't All It's Cracked Up To Be", go to www.clutterlove.com/
LEARNING TO SKI, LIVING AT TAHOE, INSTEAD OF BUYING A ROCKING CHAIR - A TRIBUTE TO AN ALICIA!
(Photos interspersed through the text mainly from Tahoe,with family members, some taken by my daughter and some by an ex-lover. Thanks to all.)
In my late 50's I decided out of the blue to learn to ski. I have no idea why this challenge popped into my mind. I knew a couple of skiers but not well enough that they'd ever say, learn to ski so you can ski with us. I was in good shape, having played club tennis for 25 years, almost daily, and having jogged for 20 years, a few miles three or four times a week. I was losing interest in tennis. It was slowly dawning on me I couldn't play singles 2-to-3 hours a day much longer - doubles bored me - and I couldn't keep jogging on asphalt and concrete without damaging my knees. I was looking for substitutes.
Skiing was a duo of new challenges. The other was weight-lifting. The two had nothing in common except for timing and a jewel of a person named Alicia. First, the pre-Alicia years. I lived in State College, and on the outskirts was Mt Tussey. It had a ski slope with a single lift. The vertical drop was a few hundred feet. You could make your descent after unloading at the top by going right or left and sticking to the center. It took far more time to ride the lift than ski down the mountain. It barely qualified as a ski area, but it was formidable to me. I rented/bought the equipment I needed, and for the final weeks of the first season plus the initial months of the next season I couldn't get off the bunny hill. The instruction was mediocre, and the one trip to the top was a disaster. I kept at it, as I'm wont to do. In contrast weight-lifting was going much better than the skiing. I was amazed how quickly I could push up the weights. I was depressed at how many times I fell down on the bunny hill. I could not turn or stop or stay up for more than ten feet without tumbling.
Here is the connection between the gym and the mountain. I was standing by the water foundation, taking a break from the bench press, when I heard a question: "You certainly hang out here a lot." I turned to face a young lady, standing next to the leg press. She was small in stature, well-proportioned, trim and scowling. "Yes," I said, "I come almost every day. This is a totally new and mesmerizing venture for me." We introduced ourselves and spent a while talking. I learned she taught aerobics at the gym, had graduated from Penn State, wanted to study veterinary medicine and was more or less in between graduation and applying to graduate school. The scowl became a smile that could melt ice miles away. I knew I was much too old to be thinking what I was thinking, but I also knew exactly what I was thinking - if I were 25 instead of near 60 I would ask her out on the spot. I never did ask her out on a date, but for the next few years we had our own special times out - dinner, coffee, walks in the woods with her dog and her friends and their dogs, so many memorable times that she takes up many pages in my daily journals that I can be obsessive about keeping.
In time I learned she was a skier and actually taught skiing at Tussey. I told how klutzy I was at my age and was about to give up. "Meet me at the mountain . ." on a day and at a time I can't recall, "and we'll check it out," she said. We met, she took me to the top of the mountain, and as I stumbled off the lift, she said "Ski!" "Go right and I'll follow" or something to that effect. I was terrified, but off I went, falling, getting up, sometimes with her help, until I was about half-way down, exhausted. We sat for a few minutes, and it was then that she delivered her diagnosis in a verbal style that is her didactic trademark - clear, precise, no-nonsense language. Let the skis do what they're supposed to do, and by all means be aggressive about letting them do what they do. (I never forgot the word aggressive and recalling it saved my butt more than once.) I'm not kidding when I say I got up, took off and pretty much reached the bottom without a serious fall. I also watched her ski in utter astonishment because her skis never touched the snow - they seemed to be magically suspended a few inches above anything soft or solid. I was wondering if some form of ether came to exist between the experienced skier and the white stuff.
We practiced a few other days. During one of those sessions, I struck an ice pit, hit the ground with a thud and rolled part way down the hill. (Rolling down slopes instead of skiing will became, as you will soon read, a trademark of mine.) Within seconds she was at my side, telling me not to get up until I was sure everything was OK. I felt the fall, that was for sure, but I was fine.
My skiing life had begun. I skied at Tussey several times a week, weather permitting, as well as at bigger resorts in Western PA with my brother and his family and in New England with my daughter and her husband. After our initial sessions Alicia and I seldom skied together because she was holding down several jobs and her time on the slopes was limited to instruction.
I had planned on taking early retirement, and I spent a couple weeks each summer touring potential retirement sites. One summer I ended up at Lake Tahoe quite by accident. The gods had stopped playing their mischievous games. Why not here, I asked myself, where I could ski in the winter, kayak in the summer and be within easy reach of one of my favorite cities. I returned the next summer, my last before retirement, and bought a condo within 15 minutes of the ski area Northstar. At 62 I became a ski bum. Although better off financially than the 20-year-old ski bums, for whom the term was invented, I embraced the role enthusiastically. I skied most every winter weekday and a few weekends, when the slopes were overstuffed with skiers. In the next 6 year I skied millions upon millions of vertical feet.
Needless-to-say during the first days on the Tahoe slopes I was utterly baffled how to navigate all the snow. The first weekend in my newly-purchased condo, 3 days before my daughter arrived from Boston to ski during the Christmas week, 5 feet of snow covered the basin and the ridges. I'd never seen so much snow, and I'd certainly never skied in that much snow. Many such storms came and went during the 6 years, and not only did I have to learn how to ski in deep and sometimes heavy snow but also how to drive. In the East I'd skied mostly on ice and I'd learned how to use the edges. In Tahoe snow, which in contrast to the champagne snow of the Rockies, is called Sierra cement, edge-skiing is less effective. After a fresh snowfall I marveled as I watched westerners, bent at knee, almost in a sitting position, traverse the snow in small takes. I never quite learned the technique well enough to look like one of them, but I got better especially after I invested in the new parabolic skies. When it turned icy, as it did from time to time, I could show off my eastern skills. To be perfectly frank, there's not much good to say about ice skiing after skiing in snow. I don't live in the West any longer. I ski with my grandson once a year in New England - it's fun to watch him develop and even to give him a few tips, but I miss the snow. Two years ago we arrived at a Maine resort in a snowstorm that left the mountain covered by the next morning with almost 2 feet of fresh powder. I felt at home once again!.
I have many memories from the Tahoe slopes. Although Northstar was my home-base, I skied at all the resorts with the exception of Kirkwood - the old-timers said it had the best snow -, and one or two small resorts. For me Squaw was the most demanding, but Alpine was not far behind. At Squaw I skied K-22, not well I confess but I made it from top to bottom. One of my best ski stories comes from Squaw. I was skiing with my brother, and after we had unloaded, crossed the edge and started down, I hit a patch of ice, and I knew immediately all was lost. It was a sheet of ice under a light layer of snow so I slid about 500 feet. In fact, since I couldn't stop myself I just lay back and, while waving to the riders on the lift above, I let myself slide until I ran out of ice. When I stood up to cheers and applause I had no idea where my skis and poles were. I was soon joined by a man with exactly what I had lost. He asked how I was, I replied, it was a hell of a ride. He smiled, patted me on the shoulder, and only then did I notice his badge: I'm 70 or older, and I ski Squaw. Being 70, which was still ahead of me, I thought, can have its rewards.
At Northstar, I developed a routine. I tried to arrive by 8:30, to reach the top by 9:00 and to record 10 to 20 runs before noon. The number of runs depended on the snow, the weather, the crowd and of course my legs. On many weekdays I was the first track-maker on the backside where the descents were 1,500 to 2,000 feet. I mostly skied alone, and I came to cherish the mornings when I had little company on the lifts or the slopes. I usually was home by noon, ate a hearty lunch, took a short nap, worked on my research and spent an hour or so in the late afternoon lifting weights at Nick and Deb's gym in Incline Village. I'd become an able skier, so at 66 I decided to learn snowboarding. The previous year I'd skied several million vertical feet at Northstar and was entitled to a free snowboard plus a couple rounds of golf.
Boarding was harder than golfing. I got to the point, though, where I could board from the top of the mountain to the lodge. If I were a younger man, I would have chosen boarding over skiing. I loved plowing through the snow on a board instead of slats and constantly making edgy turns. Everything about boarding seemed paradoxical until it happened. Maybe if I had been a skate-boarder or surfer I' have a different perspective. I gave up boarding because my hands spent a lot of time pushing off in the snow and I was afraid I might sprain or break a wrist. At my age any such injury takes forever to heal. The young kids told me not to worry, I'd get better - and I should buy wrist supports - but I never found the comfort zone to stick with it.
I left Tahoe because the remoteness of living in the mountains started getting to me. I tried ski bummery late in life after I had developed other interests. Those interests began to assert themselves. I moved from Tahoe to Paris and slid into the urban world almost as easily as I slid down that Squaw mountain. At Tahoe I made wonderful friends, whom I still have, fell in love with a beautiful woman, who unfortunately for me was married, bought a Harley, which was way beyond my aging skills, and fulfilled Alicia mandate - "Ski! " Shortly after I moved to Tahoe, Alicia moved with her boyfriend to Crested Butte. We talked about getting together and skiing on our respective mountains. We never did, and then we lost touch. Several times I tried to find her, but failed to come up with anything. Not having Alicia in my life left a blank.
By luck a years or two ago I learned that after a delay Alicia's now finishing her veterinary degree. But just recently in a curious turn of events, possible only because of the Internet, I came across her name while I was trying to track down the history of a nickname that I was playing around with in a piece I'm writing, I came across a link with the nickname and, of all things, her name. I haven't revealed that Alicia was an animal lover unlike anyone I'd ever known. She took risks in trying to rescue neglected or abused animals, and some of the stories that grew out of those ventures were scared me. But animal rescue, perhaps the less scary type, is still a part of her life. The link I came across is about a cat with the nickname I was trying to learn more about. You can read the story on the blog listed below, and you will understand why even after all these year, almost a decade without any contact, I have not forgotten what a jewel she is. And if she hadn't almost literally pushed me off the lift and down the mountain, I'd be writing about a rocking chair.
Go to Feline Rescue, Inc, Foster Tales, Shelter Stories and Adoption Updates: at felinerescue.blogspot.com
Contact me at deskguy@insidemydesk.com.
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