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The Ones Who Desired Great Skiing -- 11
The
Ones Who Desired
Great Skiing
Once upon a time, in the cattle ranch country just east of the Broncy Mountains, there lived and worked three young men, all fresh out of their senior year in high school, who wished to ski many months of the year at the greatest ski area in the west. These three, Prentice, Ira, and Sheridan, had been skiing one season in their life so far, on their senior ski trips, when the school gave them a treat by chartering buses to take them into the mountainous ski country ten times throughout the winter, and they had the times of their lives like they had never known before. these three, you see, were typical American teenage boys in the latter part of the twentieth century, growing up in a culture of complaint, a culture where most 18-year-olds, though coming from dysfunctional families and lacking emotional, psychological, and financial discipline, obtain easily-secured college loans they know not how they will repay--all the while bombarded by spectacular Eddy Mulligan ski movies and glossy magazines showing the same glamorous and superficial skiing lifestyle.
These three, Prentice the thinker, Ira the watcher, and Sheridan the doer, wished to seek the advice of angus, or Old Silver Tip, as they sometimes called him,
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the middle-aged horse wrangler who worked with them in the horse-back riding program at the Y2 Guest and Cattle Ranch--they wanted to know how they could secure jobs as ski instructors for the winter at the greatest ski area in the Broncy Mountain West, Ski Area Del Rey: "We wish to know, Angus, how we may secure jobs as ski instructors for the winter at the king of all ski areas," said Sheridan the doer, "--we understand you, Old Silver Tip, once taught skiing for many years there and a few other places, and we thought you would be the perfect one to give us the inside scoop since you might know best how the ski-school system works."
"That I do," replied Angus, "as I have invested sixteen years of my life, not just teaching skiing, but rather teaching people skiing--there is a difference,--in Coltana, Wyodaho, Nevadaho, Montarado, Utahzona, New Mexifornia, Arizico, at several great barb-wire outfit ski areas, including Athens Mountain and Mount Babylon and ski Area Del Rey. I have come full circle, you might say, from big-ski country to the ski-boy state, and learned something of great value in each Broncy Mountain state I have taught in."
Yes, tell us," pleaded Prentice the thinker, "how it is that you worked for so many ski areas in your sixteen-year career--and why are you not going back somewhere to teaching skiers skiing this winter? You have so many years invested--you must be very adept in both skiing and teaching,--and we can think of no other sport as fun."
"Never mind that!" interrupted Sheridan the doer.
"We wish only to find out how we may secure jobs as ski instructors for the winter ourselves; and, having worked at so many big great mountains, Angus, you
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must know how to get ski-teaching jobs as easy as anyone."
Ira the watcher watched with great anticipation how Angus would react to these two, Sheridan the impatient doer and Prentice the thorough thinker.
"first of all," Angus continued, "I would like to know why you three wish to become ski instructors, for it is not an easy lot you have chosen, as the way can be hard and the students steep . . . as well as sometimes shallow."
"We simply wish to ski as much as we can," Sheridan revealed, "and we just figured that, as ski instructors, instead of as bartenders or dishwashers, there would be more ample time spent up on the mountain deep in the snow. . . . And maybe, with the high profile uniform that goes with being a ski instructor at the greatest ski area in the west, fame and fortune might find us through the lens of the movie camera and magazine photographer."
"Yeah!" chimed Prentice, "then we'll get to meet a lot of girls!"
"Ah!" Angus replied, "in that case, I cannot help you. It is precisely that selfish attitude that prevails in today's ski-town society that I have finally decided to go on sabbatical from skier teaching this winter and get a steady job tending these horses for both summer and winter--I can no longer condone a system that fuels greed among ski-area owners . . . and slavery among ski-town workers. As for the girls, the occupation of ski instructor can be the loneliest profession in the west, as there may be many hollow victories. The girls will come quick . . . and leave even quicker, for longer periods than they can stay--and you must ever beware of the black widow, who has the uncanny ability to
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reflect a man's years of bad intentions, even when he has finally made every effort to turn them around for the good. The best ski instructors, working all winter holidays, teaching stranger, weather many snow-storms away from all close friends and loved ones.
And nothing can bring the rush of loneliness upon a man so overwhelming as waking up at the end of a ski week to a goodbye note placed on your pillow by a woman student you wish to love but cannot for she belongs to someone else back east--yes, stranger things do happen."
Ira's eyebrows rose significantly as he listened.
"What an interesting dialogue," he thought while watching the participants.
"By seeking refuge and staying here," Angus continued, "out on these great plains just east of the Broncy Mountains, my wages are fair, and my expenditures are kept in control; I will not likely be tempted to lie with someone I cannot call my own, and the worst I might encounter here is a brown recluse, relatively harmless compared to the black widow. In the daytime, I shall feed and work with the horses, trading what I do know about skiing and teaching for what I wish to find out more about horses and horse training; in the evening, it has been suggested by some students that I write down and explain what I have learned in my years as a kier teacher, a savvy ski-boy's secret silver sayin's for skillful skiin' , which I am doing in the form of a book called One Good Turn Deserves Another. --Well, the book is actually done being written, and it has simmered long enough, as I do not wish to keep the seven savvy sayin's a secret any longer, . . . but I regret to admit I have yet to get this long project formally published."
The Ones Who Desired Great Skiing -- 15
"And just what are a savvy ski-boy's secret silver sayin's?" Prentice inquired with his hand on his chin,
"as I should like to know."
"It's no secret that book'll never be published--he's not even certified to teach skiing!" Sheridan turned to Prentice. "Ask him to show you his certificate or gold buckle or pin--he has none. He finished writing that book over a year ago, but he just cannot find a publisher to publish it." And then turning back to Angus,
"Do I speak the truth, ski-boy?"
"You do--about my lack of National Roamin' Ski School certification," Angus admitted, "but, as for the publishing business, I am no longer waiting or looking for an outside publisher, as they want to change too much of what I have written--I now plan to self-publish my work; only, for the time being, I lack sufficient money to print books. Yes, the national publishers want a book by a ski instructor who is fully-certified by the Roamin' Ski School, and not many have failed the certification exams more than I--three gold-buckle failures in a four-year period early in my sixteen-year career; and even few remain in the ski-school business as long as I after so many failures. Furthermore, even if I reveal to you a savvy ski-boy's secret silver sayin's, it would only jeopardize your ambition to get hired on as ski instructors by any Roamin'-sanctioned National Ski School, as they will want you to conform to the ways they have so securely set in stone rather than the whims of an eccentric ski-boy such as myself. You would have mush better luck finding and trying to piece together the Dead Skier Scrolls."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," jeered Sheridan.
"So you won't tell us the secret sayin's for skillful skiin'?" feared prentice the thinker. "Nor will you tell
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us how we might secure jobs as ski instructors?"
Ira was more and more bewildered, as it can be difficult for such a watcher to listen sometimes.
"Don't worry," Angus comforted them, "there is an old truth that reveals the teacher cannot show up until the student is truly ready--you cannot force life's lessons on anyone, and especially not ski lessons. And, as for your ambition to become ski instructors and secure a season pass at a major ski resort--that is not difficult, as the turnover is high and the wages are low compared to the high cost of living in a famous ski town, . .
. although you may need to tend bar for a season, or wash dishes, while you advance far enough in your skiing abilities, which can be difficult; but you exhibit the desire to learn regardless of circumstances." . . .
Angus pondered for a moment, and then he continued,
"It has become a big scam, both on the part of many instructors and on the part of many ski students: many so-called ski instructors are nothing more than ski bums who scam a season pass . . . under the guise of ski instructor. --Many of the students get mediocre lessons because of this, so they no longer expect great lessons; but, being wealthy, they go ahead and hire a ski instructor anyway so that they may cut lift lines. --
Neither is there for the betterment of mankind, they only wish to ski and be skied, and they do it alt the expense of those left below in the lift lines. How do you think I came to be known as Old Silver tip at such a young age?" he said, removing his hat to wipe some sweat, thus revealing a tuft of grey hair in his forehead.
"That is also why I have chose to go on sabbatical for at least one year: great students are few and far between, and most students are unfortunately only average; so the greatest challenge arises from the fact that it is aw-
The Ones Who Desired Great Skiing -- 17
fully hard to teach someone who can use the learning but is clearly not interested--and, in most cases, it seems the only way I can reach those truly interested . .
. and to motivate those initially uninterested . . . is to write down, in book form and eventually video, . . .
how it is that . . . one good turn deserves another."
"Yes, and do not forget explaining a savvy ski-boy's secret silver sayin's for skillful skiing'," Prentice helped as Ira's eyes bugged out.
"Whatever," Sheridan said indifferently.
"Well, it's too bad you cannot find the money to convert your plastic computer disc into some five thousand printed books needed to get your publishing venture rolling. The banks won't lend you sufficient silver so that you may earn much gold?" inquired Prentice.
"They are cautious, as they should be, especially with an old worn-out ski instructor such as myself who has quite a small and dysfunctional financial background, with no physical evidence of collateral, save last year's ski boots and tired sway-backed pair of skis, spending much silver and gold . . . while earning only copper: in this day and age, one has to practically pawn one's pick-up truck and ski equipment or saddle in order to buy a personal computer to get any writing done in the first place--it seems the much cheaper manual typewriter and roll of industrial-strength paper towels I started with is no longer a match for today's rapid change and pace of ideas. Contrary to what our Constitution states, not all men are created equal: we are not all born at the same energy level with the same amount of money and time--some are born with obstacles, which can be seen as life's best teachers if we use our imagination, . . . while many are born with life in-
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fact too easy, never having to learn to fend for themselves; but each can make choices as to how to better his position from where he is at in the moment, concentrating on the turn at foot rather than only yearning for the many turns of the future. I am not sure yet how, but I believe our greatest obstacles eventually turn out to be our biggest blessings--if we only watch for the candles along the way during our darkest hour, which comes just before dawn anyhow."
"Well, at least tell us how you got your start as a ski instructor," Ira spoke finally.
". . . Okay," Angus finally agreed, admitting to himself that his now middle-aged tongue has always loved to wag. "But first, if you will indulge me, I may give you some insight as to why I would develop such a strong turning desire to ski in the first place--and forgive me if I add throughout why skiing in the beginning would save my life . . . and ski teaching later on would threaten to take it away:
". . . It began as sort of the same vision, say young women have when they move to southern California to become a great actress in the moving-picture business.
The popular country-rock singing group, the Eagles, has a song about this phenomenon entitled 'Hollywood Waltz'--oh, what a heartbreaking song,--and I believe the ski business has a similar disturbing scenario in the Broncy Mountain Downhill event where many great skiers and wanna-skis pay dearly with their very lives for sometimes only a few minutes of fame. So many of us in the second half of this century grow up in dysfunctional families, it is scary, absolutely scary; and, coupled with the extra burden of higher taxes, overgrowth of government, and every man, woman, and child finding it increasingly difficult to get their indi-
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vidual needs met, it is a vicious circle; and more than half of our young now leave home in their late teens, even younger, in debt emotionally, psychologically, and financially, looking for some sort of gang to join, whether it be street or legal. --If they are not born into poverty, they are sent out into the world with the equivalence of much silver and gold handed to them in the way of college loans, new cars, unearned family businesses they may not even have their heart in, . . .
and usually without the clay tablets or leather scrolls necessary for managing so much freedom and responsibility. Rich or poor, too many grow up in families they cannot wait to escape the day they turn 18. --If they are handed the clay tablets, or The Holy Bible, or other great teachings, it is usually presented to them in such a forceful and hypocritical way that they decide to ignore it or rebel against it--so they leave home with total lack of discipline, ready to have some fun for a change, wandering around with headphones on listening to songs like 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,' or far worse, finding a place where they can watch the most despicable programs on MTV, like Bart Simpson and
Beavis and Butt-head."
"Angus, what's all this got to do with skiing?"
asked Ira.
"Don't you see?" Angus continued. "Mainly because of big government and corporate greed and over-crowding itself squeezing the little man, such a thing as a good real job is getting more and more scarce all the time. I went to college . . . complete with big college debt . . . partly to study, but mainly . . . to ski--as soon as I left home from a drunk father, a tired mother, and a pushy fed-up big sister, it was time to have some fun, . . . and a friend of mine from high
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school introduced me to skiing our senior year--only one day, but that was enough. Because my turning desire outweighed my abilities to get what I wanted, my first few years' turns were in truth, unearned turns, as everyone concerned wants to do anything to keep a child quiet and maintenance-free--first it is TV or the video arcade for the baby-sitter, and then it is college and maybe skiing. In truth, I was so spoiled in my late teens and early 20s, I would have died before I would cease skiing; so, once I got good enough, I resolved to at least find a way to keep skiing without staying in college for the rest of my years. Skiing was my Life! It saved me, as it got me truly healthy for the first time in years, both physically and emotionally."
"How's that, Angus?" asked Prentice.
"Sometimes, in a family, a young family member may feel not in control of their own circumstances--one parent afflicted with alcoholism, the other parent tired and finding nowhere to turn for help, and maybe an innocently codependent big sister constantly coaching him on how to succeed in life,--so he resorts to on of the few things he has control over, his own eating habits. --If you look at photographs of my junior-high years, you will see that I was something of an anemic anorexic much like many high-school girls and college freshmen pressured into gold-medal Olympic gym-nastics or something--and, for the record, my mother knew there was something wrong, and she sought di-agnosis from the family doctor who delivered me, but he did not have a clue either, as no one had ever heard of anorexia nervosa yet, in girls let alone boys, nor bu-limia, nor even codependency or adult-children of alcoholics. In truth, I had body aches and pains through my junior-high school years to the point that I
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did not believe I would live long enough to graduate from high school, even if I did all four years in four-years time; I knew I was not eating right, and big sister and all grown-ups in my life pointed this out constantly, reminding me of the terrible sicknesses that could befall my body by the time I reached adulthood.
--What it boils down to is: if you think your horse is going to buck, he will surely buck, and enough not to let you down. There was a young man in Utah who recently died this way, through an eating disorder, in a ranch-type rehabilitation program for teen-age boys in the desert--still, everyone thinks it is a girl thang, that guys are exempt from eating disorders--you get to a point where you cannot eat right no matter how hard you try, as you gag on almost anything nutritious since it feels foreign to the taste-buds. Anyhow, fortunately for me, skiing, just plain free-skiing, with no pressure at all from all the other team members and the coaches, I found I was able to be myself and just do the best I could at my own level, with no one else effected by my mistakes and failures. --When one strikes out in the bottom of the ninth, with two outs, bases loaded, behind by one, fifty-thousand fans cheering, that's got to be an awful feeling; but, when you plant your face skiing out with friends, you can just get up and laugh about it or even lay there sometimes--not to mention: the physical activity of skiing diverted my focus and challenge me to eat right and plenty, which made my body strong, which, in turn, did wonders for my spirit-
--unlike sitting on the bench waiting for the coach to put me in with four measly seconds left on the clock, with our team hopelessly behind."
"Yes, that happened to me once or twice," acknowledged Prentice.
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. . . Now do not misconstrue what I have said about my family: we did have our fun--with the backyard bag swing for me and my brothers, our mini-bike, Sadie and Trixie and Snowball, Old Dobbin and Poco, a three-chapter tree-house, the Soap Box Derby,--and we had a most typical American upbringing, two-week vacation out west every year. --But there are many more coming up now who are having it far worse than I had it; my parents have always loved me, especially Mom, and someday soon I will honestly be able to say I have no regrets, absolutely none--not even being left in the family car till 2-in-the-morning parked outside the VFW Club at the tender age of 4, 5, and 6 while Dad got himself falling-down drunk."
"Your Dad did that to you?!" gasped Sheridan.
"And your Mom let him?!" gasped Prentice.
"Did you have a blanket? Wasn't it cold? Or hot?"
imagined Ira. "No wonder you keep your shade drawn in your little travel trailer."
"Yes, yes, it was very scary whenever the other drunks passed by knocking on the windows or check-ing to see if the doors were locked. But I believe it was that dysfunctional and scary environment that helped my sense of humor and imagination grow--being locked alone in the car for so many hours at a time at that tender age caused me to go into my own imaginary worlds, in order to cope."
"Man, that's being positive and pro-active," Prentice said, shaking his head.
"I would have shot Dad for that!" confessed Sheridan, making Ira's eyes bug out.
". . . And this scenic route that I have been on since I embarked at age 18--this is what has made me who I am today, and I would not trade place with the highest
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most-certified instructor at the greatest ski area. Most people believe that, when a person get so far gone, they cannot fully recover; but that is only true if you believe it to be true--you must never forget there is nothing you cannot change for the better, you can turn around any bad situation. I have a brother everyone claims is terminally alcoholic: the only difference between him and me is that no one ever gave him permission to simply cut down on his drinking--and sink-r-swim is not a good swim lesson. Each child is effected differently by an alcoholic parent: my other brother is the unsung hero who learned quickly from everyone else's mistakes; our only sister, the oldest, had to buckle down and go immediately to work; and I had to ski and teach skiing for my own health and happiness--the Augustus McRae of my family, you might say, with my sister playing Woodrow F. Call. . . . Now, in 1995
at age 37, I am more than twice the age I dreamed of being--ha!--if I had known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself, . . . and now sometimes I fear I am going to be around twice that! --
So it might be nice to get a career going finally in the field I know best, which is up on the winter mountain-side--as this world we live in experiences rapid growth and rapid change, possibly doubling its population size in our adult lifetime. An internal winter may be approaching, and the time to prepare for it is now, while the whether is still pleasant. . . . Every night I go to bed wondering what I am doing here in exile east of the Broncy Mountains: I believe it may have something to do with the great earthquakes that are coming, as I have narrowly escaped two in the past, you know, by less than seventy-two hours, the Bay Area Quake of '89
and the one that formed Quake Lake in 1959. --Maybe
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the next one I escape will be in 2019. . . ."
"But are you ever going to tell us of your first ski-school job?--before any of us ages any more?" inquired Sheridan. "I have a date tonight."
"All right, all right," Angus continued. ". . . The beginning of my bonus years, it was the fall of 19-hundred-and-79, just after Thanksgiving, and the fall tri-mester of my studies at Nevadaho State University had just ended, and I needed a long break from being an English literature major, a curriculum much too hur-ried for me, an undisciplined kid in those days.
"I had no real trade yet, and little writing was done, although many gullible readers already considered me a fine writer. But I had two years of college under my belt, with a low grade-point-average, as most of my time was spent riding the chairs at nearby Pelvis Butte when they were running . . . or writing at my dorm-room desk when they were not, or at least experi-menting with writing. And, in truth, I somehow felt a little guilty about going to college to become a better writer--the professors and other authorities always assumed I would become a high-school English teacher or college professor,--but somehow I felt I was chosen to write down my true feelings in ways entertaining enough to be swallowed by many unsuspecting readers, as I kept receiving strange signs suggesting to me that others would benefit from and find comfort in the telling of my relatively typical trials and