Ski trip, 2014

Jane and I drove UO to Timberline to ski a few runs today. We had a fine time, the snow was smooth and the skiing was easy. There was a slight wind and as the day wore on the light got flat, so we called it a day at noon and drove down to Welches for Mexican food. Jane and I met because of skiing. She moved to Eugene from the Midwest after graduating from college. One day she mentioned to a new friend that she wanted to learn to ski. The girl said, "I know a guy on the Aspen Mt Ski Patrol who comes back to Eugene every summer." On schedule I appeared. Dad raised cattle and I came back to help him bale hay every summer. While relaxing at a tavern I was introduced to Jane. The attraction was mutually strong, and that fall who should turn up on the doorstep of my trailer house next to Bishop's Garage but the cute girl I had met in Eugene. Before I knew it, she and her pregnant Siamese cat were moved in. Of course broken hearts littered the streets of Aspen, but how could I resist this lively entertaining beautiful young lady. I had met the girl of my dreams. She has been my best friend for forty three years. Skiing has been a big part of my life since the winter of 1952 when JDL and STH and I took wooden skis, handmade by JDL's Swedish grandfather years before we were born, up to Willamette pass Ski Area. Of the three pair, only one survived the trip, but skis were all that was broken, and we were hooked. Back then downhill and cross country skis and boots were almost the same, but it was a time of quick change in the world of skiing. Within a few years we had skis with metal edges and stiff leather boots, multi layered for stability. Our feet were firmly attached to the skis with long strips of leather, long thongs. The skis had to reach to the tips of our fingers. Stein Erickson won the Olympic downhill on TV and we discovered parallel turns. In college we spent every spring break at Sun Valley, lurking near an instructor and is class to pick up pointers. When I graduated in 1960 I signed up for the Navy OCS program and was at loose ends over the winter so Bob and Jim and I followed a couple of friends who were entering races to qualify for the Olympic team. We started on Mt Hood, then Sun Valley. We were total ski bums, for lunch we would get a glass of water, fill it with ketchup and oyster crackers, and eat our tomato soup while keeping an eye out for edible leftovers gliding by on the busboys pushcart. We saved our money for ski tickets and beer and lodging. We stopped in SLC to ski Alta and ended up in Aspen, where we packed sow in the morning for afternoon tickets and stayed in a motel next to the Hotel Jerome which was managed by an alcoholic cowboy who let us stay for free is we looked after the place for him. Eventually our money ran out and we drove back to Eugene nonstop, through a snowstorm from Bend to Oakrisge. A month later I was in Newport RI marching in formation with a bunch of other recent college graduates, preparing to keep America's oceans safe from communism. And we did. Nick