The Enforcement Of
True Downhill Skiing
By
GARY HEINS
U.S. SKI TEACHER
Over the weekend, Mr Heins moved from the Mooin' Meadows Trailer Park . . . out to his Swinging G Ranch, which he had been getting ready during the daylight hours for a couple of months now. That Monday, I pulled my trailer out there to join him like he'd suggested. We would still have the convenience of getting together for our meetings like we had in the Trailer Park, but now it would be in a fresh new environment. We estimated that we were half-way through the book at this juncture.
I drove west out of town some four or five miles, when I noticed what I thought to be the Swinging G. He had described owning some forty-thousand acres, but that his travel trailer and a couple of small sheds are conveniently parked on a one-acre rectangle for convenience and unity. As I pulled in up the driveway, I could see Mr Heins outside the fence out the southwest corner, up on a high area . . . hitting golf balls. I tooted my horn, and he waved for me to come out. As I got out of my pick-up, the sweetest dog and cutest cat greeted me.
"Meet Agnes and Matilda, Mr Buntline," he greeted "I found them already here when I moved out; they were waiting for me--the cat was in the water trailer, and the dog was spending her nights under that woodpile. It seems I've been adopted, a stray ski teacher. 'Agnes' is short for the 'agricultureness' of being a good mouser; and 'Matilda' is a nice Aussie-type name, because I think she's part Australian Shepherd and part Birder Collie, and it means 'brave in battle,' for all the coyotes out-n-about here."
"Your family is growing--one of the signs, I think, that you'll be cashing in soon on your books. . . . And look at all the hummingbirds!--there must be six of them at that one feeder. Ooh! watch out!"
"Yeah, Mr Buntline, they're like little fighter jets: there's 'Mean Dartin' who drinks more than his fair share . . . and 'Polly Dartin' with the biggest breast. Then the youngest sharpest one I call old 'Needle-nose,' . . . and the oldest wisest one I call old 'Noodle-nose.'"
"I get your point, Mr Heins. Your Swinging G Ranch is thriving," I complimented him as we strolled back out to his Tee Area.
"What do you think, Mr Buntline? I've got my own little driving range out here too, for sighting-in my clubs." Then he whacked another one over the gravel road below. "Kind of reminds you of 'the road hole' at Royal Saint Andrews, doesn't it?"
"Yes, oh, yes, it does. So this is what you do for 'afternoon tee.' There's not many trees out here, and they tell me the wind can blow. But you like it, don't you?--these wide open spaces."
"Yeah, Mr Buntline," he said, looking off into the distance, "forty-thousand acres of 'Eminent Do-Mine'--it's the best I can do with what I have to work with right now." He pointed his golf club back to the east toward town, at the two-dozen or so scattered homesteads closer to town: "You see them, Mr Buntline? Those are 'my ranch employees,' . . . and all this land out around us here," he continued waving his club, "is 'my forty-thousand acres.'"
"And I suppose those cattle over there are 'your cattle,' and not Charlie Waite's cattle."
"Oh, I let him think they're his cattle, you know, to boost his morale and all."
It was fun to look around . . . and dream and pretend like he was so capable of doing. "And your modest living quarters here, Mr Heins, a small home-made trailer . . . shaped like the state of Nebraska. No one would ever know how rich you are, you being so modest and all."
He whacked another golf ball. "This is one of the things I do to unwind. And, in a few years here, I think the conditions are open and windy enough, . . . I hope to host The Brutish Open."
"Oh, yes, right here at the Swinging G Country Club."
". . . But, best of all, Mr Buntline," he said, putting his arm around me and pointing his club at the White Mountains to the south, "you can see SunRise Ski Area from here. So I can still have actual ski students to teach."
I walked off the high area with him, down across the road, to where most of the golf balls had landed, out in the grass and cactus and sagebrush. "Watch out for rattle-snakes," he cautioned me. But it wasn't too tough of a chore, since Mr Heins believed in carrying a small bucket in one hand . . . and a nifty ball retriever in the other. In a fairly short time, we must have picked up a hundred golf balls together. "I told you it was going to take a lot of balls," he said.
I spent the rest of the afternoon getting my trailer parked and settled in at his ranch. It was a modest outfit, but it had all the modern conveniences: septic tank, electricity, firewood, water. Then there was the golf-ball driving range, all the out-n-about bike trails, even a short ski-racing course for roller blades
The main compound had that Heinsian character. He'd built a small porch to set along side his travel trailer, which he claimed 'doubles as a raft, just in case there's a great flood.' He had an eight-foot decorative windmill up on the high ground out to the west, which he claimed is his water source, though on closer inspection one could see his water trailer parked in the high back corner, with a garden hose coming from it. An old dilapidated shack on the north side he claimed is 'and old stage stop, where the 3:10 to Yuma used to come through.' Even over his septic tank, he built a fake mine entrance, complete with pick-n-shovel, old lanterns, and old canteens, with a sign that read 'SEPTIC TANK MINE'--implying that everything he does . . . turns to gold. In fact, beside a small shed, on a heavy-duty pallet, he had several old mobile-home support blocks made of concrete but shaped like square ingots, which he'd painted metallic gold--'I've got twenty-five hunderd-pounds of solid gold right there, Mr Buntline, and each piece is too heavy to worry about anyone carting it off." He also had gold nuggets in pans on some corner shelves on his porch--'I guess I might have to drop some of them overboard if the flood comes.' One of his old antique lanterns he claims was dug up recently by his dog Matilda, "A Lassie's Lantern," he called it, granting him three wishes--his first wish . . . was "to have an unlimited number of wishes." Then there was his prized telephone pole, or 'cellaphone pole,' as he called it, with foot-pegs sticking out two sides--"When I'm getting bad reception, Mr Buntline, I just climb up there, just like Eddie Albert on Green Acres." He had a bunch of old 1980s and '90s mountain bikes and parts he was working on, partly for hisself and his guests, partly for another book, which he makes believe are his horses--as real horses weren't feasible just yet.
There wasn't anything he wasn't having fun with, and it was a pleasure witness it all first-hand. He even had a lecturn standing by his clubhouse . . . that he claimed was "the same lecturn used by Glenn Ford in Heaven With a Gun," which would be put to good use as he lectured many parts of the rest to this book. The first thing he said at his lecturn, before we got started in the actual ski lessons . . . was this: "Before we get started, Mr Buntline, there's one thing I want to make absolutely clear: . . . I don't make the laws of natural skiing, I just enforce them. Amen."
Overview: Why Skiing Needs Law & Order
"About five years into my ski teaching career, Mr Buntline, I noticed I was spending most of my time correcting mistakes with intermediate and advanced skiers, instead of just adding on. Some of these mistakes were self-inflicted by the students themselves, but then I noticed more and more of them were mistakes actually induced or flat-out taught by previous instructors all over the country. Your more common ski students have one-to-three primary problems in their ski life: they've been abused physically, usually by being taken too steep too soon, or some other sub-liminal difficulty they couldn't put their finger on; they've been neglected emotionally, concerning the true spirit of skiing, as someone failed to keep it fun; or they've been misunderstood mentally, concerning their communication needs.
"So you are talking Heart, Mind, and Body--HMB--addressing the total ski student."
"That's right. And, as my career developed, I noticed my fellow instructors sending the so-called 'head cases' . . . my way, the ones most other instructors had deemed 'unteachable,' which was fine with me."
"'Unteachable'--that's a harsh term for a needy student to come to grips with."
"I remember a number of times in the late 1980s, early '90s doing a split with Theo Meiners, the Kirk Douglas of the Jackson Hole Ski School, for the high and low groupings of the fabled Ski Meisters class, one of the highest levels of Ski School available to the civilian general public. A lot of Ski Meisters students, having taken lessons everywhere else, weren't planning on seeking any more ski instruction, but, upon arrival Sunday, when they first rode the lifts of North America's toughest mountain, they would decide, 'Well, one more week of Ski School wouldn't hurt.' Theo would take us all to a fairly steep slope with the crappiest snow he could find: 'I don't want there to be any mistake, Heins.'"
"In a way, it sounds like he did not want to have to teach, that the less proficient students were somehow . . . less-teachable."
"That's right, Mr Buntline, . . . whereas I figured I would take the clay that still could use quite a bit of molding."
"That is a healthy attitude, and proactive."
"There's been a sort of subliminal attitude in the air . . . that the student is supposed to race to catch up to the teacher. The guys who ski well but don't admit they don't know how to teach--they figure, more often than not, it's the student's own fault for not getting it."
"But you have more compassion, Mr Heins."
"I mean, one of the worst half-truths out there is the old cliché: 'Those who can . . . do, and those who can't . . . teach.' That's often what a great skier will say, and his worshippers will back him up, . . . in order to get themselves off the hook."
"The trouble is, Mr Heins, most people don't know what great teaching is . . . until they come across a guy like you, which isn't often enough for most people, in most walks of life."
"I may have met one true 'Unteachable' in my career, an older gentleman who was a retired Navy Admiral."
"Ah, so he was used to giving orders all his life, but not taking them."
"Yeah, but I don't know that he was always unteachable--I mean, we learn even the bad . . . from somewhere; I believe he was actually taught to be unteachable by one of his main ski instructors in his beginning and low intermediate days."
"So perhaps the only way to reach an 'Unteachable' ski student . . . is to try to get them on Tax Evasion."
"Good one, Mr Buntline."
"I knew you would like it."
"It's hard for me to watch Warren Miller Movies sometimes, besides the things we talked about last time. I don't always agree with what Warren Miller is saying or showing--I have strong opinions about it; but then I see old friends of mine actually skiing in the footage, which makes me happy, but lonesome because I am not with them and I was never a part of it."
"Oh, my, and you'd think he would have found out about and latched onto you classic SKI-BOY POETRY years ago--and your SKI-BOY-n-WESTERN MUSIC."
"The season of 2007-08, I found out we lost our beloved Extreme Skier Doug Coombs in April of 2006--he was 'rescuing a friend.' I was informed by my long-lost friend Kent Lundel who I venerated while working at Park City, Utah in the early 1980s. I should have been at Doug's funeral, but it was a year-n-a-half before I even knew he had passed. A lot of people don't know we were friends; but the fact is we go way back to Bozeman in the late 1970s: I remember partying with him and listening to him talk about his new K2 710 Slalom Skis: 'They turn so easy, they wanna turn, they wanna turn, they're so easy!' and I got myself a pair within a year my first year teaching. Then I did my two years in Utah, and then, when I got to Jackson Hole by 1984, there was Doug Coombs again. About 1986or7, give or take, I got the ultimate compliment on my skiing: Doug Coombs asked me to be his Powder-Eights partner--not bad for a guy who didn't even start skiing until age 18. Being a teacher, what I was most proud of then was that Doug noted the fluid rhythm I had--I mean I was proud of him for detecting it. I learned my rhythm from probably two instructors: David Cole at Bridger Bowl 1977, one sentence in ten-week lesson, . . . and Frankie Elliot at Park City 1982-84, who complimented me one time on my demos for my students."
"--Which goes to show why what we say and do matters so much to the people around us, especially if they are students. And you loved Doug Coombs too, didn't you?--even though you allude to him in your book The Greatest Ski Instructor."
"Yeah, Mr Buntline, we all need to be loved--that's why Doug did what he did for the camera, and that's why I do what I do. He died with his ski-boots on."
"And now he's buried up on Ski-Boot Hill."
"Something like that, I guess."
"That's how people market themselves, isn't it? That's why some guys risk their lives riding rodeo bulls. The fellow who markets himself successfully . . . tends to get the girl."
"Yeah, Mr Buntline, you sort of sum things up right there. A man has to find a need . . . and fill it." He stopped in reverie for a moment, then regained his focus on the bigger need of Humanity. ". . . But I suppose we'd better get on with the enforcement of good skiing."
"All right, Mr Heins, I'll try not to get you sidetracked again."
"The nifty advances in ski technology in the late 1990s and early 2000s made skiing better for a lot of people, true, but the Powers-That-Ski, in the upper echelons of ski instruction, got off track somewhat and forgot how to teach skiing the way the best teachers have always taught. I personally don't teach skiing any different now than I did in the 1980s. 'Old School' does not automatically mean a bad thing; sometimes it is the best thing. In the History of Modern Skiing, very few instructors have ever taught enough steering and skidding for speed control; secondly, even fewer instructors have ever known what and how to teach concerning ski poles from beginner to expert, so there are more than a couple of ski-pole issues. . . . See, when the newest technology came along by the early 2000s, making carving more attainable than ever before, overall ski instruction got even worse because the Powers-That-Ski elite and their followers started preaching more 'Carve, Carve, Carve,' giving the impression that steering or skidding is a sin---the skid/carve debate. --JFC!!! I don't care how good a skier you are, if you're on the steeper parts of an intermediate blue-square run, you had better start steering and skidding those tails around to brush off some speed, or you're gonna kill someone, maybe even kill a full-groan pine tree! Certainly, on advanced double-blue-squares, black-diamonds, and expert double-black-diamonds, carving is not an option--there comes a point where, unless you're the only racer or extreme skier on a fenced-off run, carving is Suicide Bombing--almost as bad as straight-running."
"Oh, my, it sounds like Terrorism."
"The most criminal thing that came out of the advances in technology at the turn of the millennium was this: The PROHIBITION Of the Wedge, the beginner portion of the skid/carve debate. The Powers-That-Ski, in their so-called infinite wisdom in the upper echelons of Ski Instruction, in conjunction with greedy ski-manufacturing executives, set up a 'Steering' Committee . . . that decided that 'Parallel Carving is so easy on these new skis, we won't even teach the Wedge anymore!'--it was one of the biggest blunders in the History of Downhill Skiing, this wedge/'parallel' debate."
"A 'Steering' Committee? You mentioned it earlier too, I think--with J. Edger Hoover."
"Yeah, hallelujah! but don't be fooled by the name: they wanted the skis only . . . to be able to do any steering, not the skier."
"Like West World again, Mr Heins, computers taking over."
"They gave J. Edger Hoover all this power, slapped some 'official'-looking badges on some guys, and started going around making sure you weren't condoning any wedging. The original skills in skiing--pressure, edge, and turning--were kind of set up in the beginning of the American Teaching Method, by the Founding Fathers, as each having equal value to each other, a kind of checks-n-balances system; but lately it's as if they want to totally get rid of the skill beginners, and every skier at one time or another, may need the most, . . . steering."
"Who was, or is, the Founding Father of the American Teaching Method, Mr Heins?"
"That's nice of you to ask that, Mr Buntline. And, interestingly enough, I believe it was an Austrian, named Horst Abraham, who was sort of kicked out of the hard-core Austrian Ski School . . . for free-thinking and doing things a better way. You don't much hear about him now though, as the Powers-That-Ski have drastically strayed away from his wisdom. I don't know if he is even still alive; but I do know he would turn in his grave like Thomas Jefferson if he knew what has happened to modern ski school."
"It's just like our American Government, isn't it?"
"It drove me out of the business for almost five years: when they told me I wasn't allowed to even teach the Wedge to beginners, I refused to teach on several ski schools. For a while there, I felt like one of the Ten MOST-UNWANTED Ski Instructors In America!"
"You?!!!--that's absurd. But, then, I guess we did meet in the Eggs Aisle. And it's not like you can just cross some ocean on the Mayflower nowadays . . . and start your own ski school somewhere else--this is the last frontier, and you are right in stopping to fight it out, like Ernest Borgnine tells Glenn Ford in Jubal, not being pushed further into running away."
"Thanks for sticking up for me, Mr Buntline."
"You're welcome."
"The Wedge is the tricycle of skiing, and you have to have the Wedge before you can have parallel. Parallel Skiing has always been fundamentally misunderstood and over-rated--they've always made parallel skiing sound like the goal, but it's not the goal. All Parallel Skiing is . . . is a product of having enough momentum and stability to take the training wheels off. Now almost anyone can parallel ski on the easy bunny-hill on easy hard-pack snow after only a couple of hours on skis, with enough daylight, confidence, and momentum; but the problem is they need the wedge first! if only for a few minutes! The problem is this: too many ski instructors don't know how to introduce the wedge for what it is, a temporary scaffolding to start construction of a great skier; they tell innocent neophytes that 'the Wedge is Evil, and, if you ever learn it, you'll be infected with it the rest of your ski life.' JFC!!!" He paused for a moment, repositioning himself in his chair and taking a deep breath, so as to drive home the stupidity of it all: "We have innocent ski students, Mr Buntline, who can 'parallel-ski' pretty routinely after only a few days . . . on easy slopes with easy snow conditions . . . who are brain-washed by the status-quo . . . into thinking they have mastered the sport! Pretty ignorant stuff."
"In truth, they know just enough to get themselves into big trouble."
"That's right, Mr Buntline. Those Green Acres Ski Schools that signed a contract in the early 2000s to 'not teach the wedge' . . . ought to be indicted for manslaughter. Taking the wedge out of skiing is worse than taking the wedge out of golf, and they would never think of taking it out of golf. Taking the wedge out of skiing is like taking the wedge out of splitting firewood, pretty much impossible. A few years later, most of those guys admitted, confessed actually, 'the absence of the wedge in beginner skiing was an abysmal failure,' as its prohibition was much too unpopular and much too expensive to enforce."
"So PROHIBITION Of the Wedge didn't work. It just goes to show . . . you can't prohibit something that is truly unprohibitable."
"That's right, Mr Buntline: I would never try to prohibit something deemed naturally unprohibitable."
"That's good to know, Mr Heins."
"And, further, Mr Buntline, in all this misuse of the term 'parallel,' a lot of good independent-leg-action has been lost. It's almost as if the skiers, feeling sorry for their shackled counterparts, subconsciously decided to forego the benefits of independent-leg-action--and then the Powers-That-Ski got ahold of this notion and decided to make it official in most of their legislated ski techniques. Keep in mind, Mr Buntline, there are plenty of occasions in intermediate and advanced skiing . . . when half of a wedge will really help you get the job done and become a more versatile skier, able to proceed to your full potential or slopes and snow conditions."
"Oh, my, I can see how they've been able to show people 'how difficult skiing can be,' rather than 'how easy.' . . . It's amazing how much there is to consider, Mr Heins."
"Ski Poles--now here's a big topic that got lost in the shuffle of the big new-tech revolution. Again, the Powers-That-Ski, in their ignorantly infinite wisdom, decided that, since the new skis can carve that much easier, 'we don't need to teach pole-planting any more.' Nothing could be further from the truth--once you start skiing intermediate terrain on easy hard-pack snow, you greatly benefit from having a pole plant. In fact, it can be miserable trying to ski black-diamond runs without extensive pole experience--yet I have witnessed so-called seasoned instructors doing just that to their students."
"Oh, my, that's Ski-Instructor Brutality, isn't it?"
"But, before you worry about pole plants, and you can have different ones for different situations, first you need to spend some time just learning to carry the darn things, keeping them quiet. It is true that it takes better balance to ski without poles than to ski with poles; so . . . most inexperienced ski instructors, in the name of teaching 'Balance,' and probably bribed by the lazy rental workers, confiscate ski poles from beginning ski students. --Well, right away, they put the beginning skiers at a disadvantage--just ask a tightrope walker. Let's get something straight: you don't need great balance to be a decent intermediate skier; you need great balance to be a gymnast or an acrobat; but, if you can stand in a pair of tennis shoes, you can stand on a pair of skis. Poles enhance a skier's Balance, and beginners need all the help they can get. One caveat: if I have a totally spastic beginner who doesn't have their wits about them to keep the poles from poking in the snow, then I may confiscate their poles for a run or two, sort of temporarily disarm them if they are a threat to themselves and others. But, to me, a skier without poles is like a cowboy without a lariat--even a dude can learn to carry a rope without getting tangled in it--only a dude may never need a rope, but a new skier does need poles."
"You mean business, don't you?"
"But, keep in mind, when a pole-less beginner falls down, they may not be able to get up without the benefit of a ski pole: it takes extraordinary abdominal strength, thigh muscles, and knee constitution to up-right oneself on the bunny-hill with your skis still on and no pole help. I've witnessed prospective ski instructors, good skiers, tear knees apart and split guts open . . . attempting to get up from flat terrain, all because some rude weekend drill sergeant demanded they perform the task.It is much easier to get up on the steep than it is to get up on the flat--on the flat, it's much more difficult to get your legs below you. Now, I'm not going to spend all day here explaining a bunch of pole techniques for getting up, just the most basic one: wriggle around till your skis are below you across the hill, then use one pole to undo the heel binding of your uphill ski--once you easily stand on your uphill knee, you're up. Again, most hard-core less-experienced instructors would rather spend fifteen minutes showing you the hard way rather than one minute showing you the easy way."
"More Ski-Instructor Brutality."
"That's right, Mr Buntline, more Ski-Instructor Brutality . . . that almost always goes unreported, because the student is too intimidated or still innocently believes that all instructors know best."
"And it certainly is clear, Mr Heins, . . . that you will never give up your ski poles . . . to anyone . . . ever."
"From my cold dead fingers, Mr Buntline, from my cold dead fingers."
"Oooh, that makes it very clear--just like Charlton Hesston and your firearms, . . . and just as you've said about your school-bus steering wheel and your old mountain-bike handlebars."
"Giving up your ski-poles, Mr Buntline, is equivalent to giving up your freedom--freedom to have better balance, freedom to get frozen snow off your ski-boots, freedom to pole yourself out of powder and across the flats, . . . and freedom to have your best possible turn-linkage in the steep-n-narrow."
"Very good, Mr Heins. You sure know how to lay it on thick. Obviously very few have the wisdom you possess about ski poles."
"Oh, other more seasoned skiers and instructors may know instinctively what I know for their own personal skiing; but they may have never gotten around to realizing they could pass it on to their students."
"In fact, there are some who swear, Mr Heins, . . . that your ski poles hold some kind of magic power for your teaching, that they often act like a magic wand, that you can wave one over your students . . . and suddenly they start skiing better--this is what some students say more than other instructors."
"Oh, I don't know, Mr Buntline," he grinned, "that one sounds like a Tall Tale to me. I wonder who would start such a story. My ski poles are just ordinary hiking poles, $29.99 a pair at the sporting goods store--technically, they're not even actual ski poles, but I liked the color, and I like that I can adjust their height."
"Well, I'm sure what you know about ski poles . . . you are not likely to keep a secret. Many instructors could learn from you . . . about ski-pole issues and most everything else--why don't they?"
"Well, Mr Buntline, some of them have and do, without admitting it. It's the Pecking Order thing again. Were I to be a member still of PSIA, and if I were to enroll in a clinic put on by one of the masters, it's 'common knowledge' that the Clinician 'knows more' than the members required to buy his services. In truth, Mr Buntline, the best teachers are constantly learning from their peers and students--it's just that the greedy power-hungry ones won't ever confess to it."
"Oh, my, you sure can spill the beans. And that's another good reason that you dropped out of PSIA so many many years ago, by 1985."
"Let's take a moment to clarify the meaning of 'Experience.' I've heard thousands of instructors brag about how much experience they have, with distortions most people couldn't possibly be privy to. One lady, for instance, claimed she had thirty years in the business--sounds great; but, on closer inspection, her 'thirty years' entailed starting the season a few weeks late, around late December, leaving the season early by mid-March--heck, that's not even three months out of a four- or five-month season. But wait: the real kicker is, being a Mormon school teacher, she only showed up one day a week--and you can bet, on that one day, the last thing she wanted to do was teach, she just wanted to ski. . . . So: Your 'thirty-year instructor' may not even have the experience of a 'first-year rookie.' A friend of mine showed up four days a week, but she tried her darndest to 'slip through the portal' to free-ski two of those days--and I understood, since I seemed the fool for busting my ass in a ski industry that treats ski instructors like ski-bums, so I couldn't really blame her. --Anyway, these are the people PSIA loves to pass with flying colors in their certification exams, as they will never be a threat to The Examiners. Me, though, I was a threat, having a five- or six-day weekly schedule all season long, for twenty-five years, and then pondering my skiing and my students during much of my 'free time.' --Hence, my living in exile . . . and my book-writing--I'll get the last word. I've skied with over ten-thousand students, all types of real people; heck, some PSIA examiners haven't skied with the general public in over thirty years--they're 'out of touch,' just like our politicians."
"Just like our spoiled politicians."
"Meanwhile, Mr Buntline, here is another most-important key point: whenever I would go into exile . . . and then come back into a ski school a few years later, looking older and more tired and financially down-n-out and on out-dated equipment, naturally I always gave the impression that I was a nobody, that I was not an instructor to be reckoned with."
"Ooh, little did they know-- That's economic discrimination, they judge you by your lack of new equipment, your lack of driving a new pick-up, without giving you credit for living within your meager means . . . .that were imposed by the Powers-That-Ski to begin with!"
"Yeah, I've always done the best I can with what I've got to work with. And, for many years now, I've had a turning desire . . . to set things straight."
"No one else could possibly know what you've come to know, because no one else has had to endure your long journey. You have the patience of Job, Mr Heins. And we are about to take everything you know . . . straight at them . . . Texas Style!"
"Thank you for noticing, Mr Buntline. 'Texas Style!' I like that: All At Once. I think that was in a Joel McCrea western, wasn't it?"
"I think so, yes, A Stampede! It'll scare them more than a thousand FDBs skiing straight at the