Rita-that's the wife-is a ski instructor. Taught at Taos for years.
Fifteen years ago, when my son was 12, he asked to take snowboarding lessons. We were all recalibrating our lives at the time, and it had always been the kids’ mother’s and my policy to encourage all their endeavors, so I said “sure.” Since I’d skateboarded and surfed when I was his age, I had always been somewhat intrigued by snowboarding, so I took lessons with him. Now, my son doesn’t get onto the slopes much anymore-he probably likes falling into cold wet snow even less than I do, if such a thing is possible, but I stuck with it-in fact, in spite of falling on my butt several times,
I was sooo happy!
Later, I met Rita-that's the wife-and wound up married to a ski instructor/wilderness freak/fitness Nazi, so I get to spend lots of time backcountry skiing, camping and snowboarding…..heck,one of our first weekends away together was avalanche school in Silverton, Colorado.
You don’t see a lot of black guys on the slopes-or Indians. While I qualify as both (and often get asked “What are you?”
, when
skiing, I’m that rarest of birds, the
rara avis Africanus Americus, or the black American snowflier.:lol:
The men on the pro patrol up in Durango don’t like me.
Here I am, some black, "city-fella," who married the most intelligent, gonzo-skiier, beautiful blonde any of them ever knew, and they just don’t get it. Never mind that I make her happy, or that I manage to keep up with her (actually, while I’m better at cross-country skiing than she is, and she doesn’t board at all, the lady was an instructor at
Taos-a pretty big deal-she's a downhill
godess, and
I am not worthy…:lol:....)I'm not a cowboy (lots of them out here-
real ones), or a ski-instructor, but some sort of engineer-nerd:a
sailor, fer chrissakes, and not even a commercial airline pilot.(Yeah, she dated an airline pilot for a while.
Him they liked.)
When I first met her old ski pals, the reception from more than a few of them was chilly, to say the least.
Forget that I’m a “snowboarder,” which is somehow supposed to be beneath them. I really pissed them off one weekend though. They just can’t stand it that on one fine day,
I jumped off the biggest cliff at Purgatory. I hung in the air a looooong time. I made the landing, surprising myself, and in sweet relief, looped toy turns through perfect powder on down.
All that day, they didn’t talk to me. Kids saw me do it, and a few may even have tried it and made their jobs harder, but what it really was is that they were jealous.They didn’t talk about me either, or the jump, not to anybody, but they knew: a black guy on a snowboard had done it first.
That cliff had been under Lift #3, waiting since 1965, or at least for 15 years or so since that lift was put in. They could have jumped off anytime-lots of dudes had-but none of
them had. :lol:
I was just out for the afternoon. I’d been nursing a not-quite bum knee (surgery a few years later), but Rita (that’s the wife) wanted to go skiing, so I brought along my snowboard. I knew I shouldn’t jump, but I couldn’t help myself. The conditions were perfect.
There was enough snow to cover the logs in the landing area and to allow me to clear the outcropping rock, and oddly enough,and rest had made my knee strong that day.
I was sooo happy-andI bet you'll be too, Carol.
Hmmm.....maybe we'll head up to Durango this weekend.....
