A Plethora of Posts (or when it snows it blizzards!)

Ski Equipment c. 1970's

     Well Gentle Reader, steady your heart as you read a second post from the ModSub in as many days. What can be said except that the inordinate amount of snow lends itself to either hibernation or creative essays. Witness the latter in this humble offering. The children's skis belonged to my brother and me. My mom and dad took us to the Ski Chalet to acquire proper ski equipment. We were fans of "Ski East", frequenting the icy slopes of Ski Liberty and Blue Knob and Seven Springs. Most of my memories from these adventures center around the ski lifts themselves from the rope lift to the button seat lift to the granddaddy of lifts-- the chair lift. Actually, the precursor to any power driven lift was my dad pulling me up the bunny hill by the end of my ski poles.

      I was instructed to grip the rope lift (where were my poles?), which, as soon as I dutifully grabbed on, I was jerked up the hill with quite sore rope-burned palms. My small sense of payback was when, upon reaching my destination, I kept a hold of the rope until much yelling from others to "let go" caused me to let go. One can imagine the rubber band twanging effect that the other poor saps felt in my wake.

      The button seat lift was even more challenging. Somehow, after straddling the circular "seat" suspended from a rope, I was moved to a higher potential energy point. However, it was a fine balance to counter the pull of the seat and not to actually sit down and be dragged in the snow in utter embarrassment.

       One day, I miraculously found myself ready for the two person chairlift. On my maiden run, I found myself next to my first instructor, my dad. Instructed to "look behind me and have my hand ready to grab the side of the chair", I was startled at the speed at which the chair approached and scooped us up in one fell swoop. Wow! Such exhilaration; such a sense of accomplishment! The bar came down and I was able to rest my booted skis on it and to revel in the safety so far above the skiing ants below. We approached a giant turning horizontal flywheel and my dad lifted the bar. What the.... My dad got up and went down the small debarkation hill. "Very nice," I thought. More yelling; really, why is skiing so vocal? Still in the chair myself and rounded the flywheel to the return side, I had neglected the crucial step of getting out at the top. After the ski lift operator, who was busy earning his minimum wage with me, ground the cable to a halt and put the works in reverse, I was able once again with extreme trepidation to disembark with a modicum of dignity.

Faithfully recounted,

The ModSub

Blizzard Redux!

Winter Oil Painting by my mother, RCK

     Well, gentle reader, it has been a season of frozen posts from the ModSub; but, not to fear, there is a thaw occurring even with the onset of a historic blizzard. We haven't seen snow fall like this since 2010 (Original Blizzard Post  ) and 1978. I do have good memories of rolling large snow boulders with my brothers in the front yard of my home in the late 70's. We used up every available inch of snow to construct Fort Mandan, much to my dad's dismay since the sheer weight was grass killing. The snow battle that ensued with the neighbor's kids was, as my son would put it, epic. The best part of this recollection was the sheer solitude near the oak in the backyard with only the sound of the whipping wind to comfort my pioneer mindset. I read a lot of Laura Ingalls Wilder back then; but didn't everyone? As I was saying, the best, best part was returning inside to the centrally heated home to have hot chocolate and marshmallows with my mom inquiring as to my brothers' whereabouts. My response was invariably, "Dunno" or "Outside". There is something to be said for a childhood before the virtuality and pervasiveness of screens.

The ModSub