The Best Medicine

How did I get up here?I contemplated this question as I stood at the top of that snow-covered mountain. I was wearing more layers of clothing than ever before, but the wind seemed to find a way through each layer. To make matters worse, my outfit could not even pretend to be color-coordinated. It looked like I had closed my eyes and grabbed garments at random during a frantic trip to the flea market, but the truth was that I borrowed most of what I had on. This was my first skiing trip in Junior High School. My friends had finally convinced me to come along and they each lent me an item that they no longer used. Jeff had donated his bright green ski pants, while Kenny provided the orange jacket. I’m not sure where the red gloves came from, but that was OK because nobody was asking for anything back. I convinced myself that at least I would be easy to spot in the snow. My parents dropped me off at the bus waiting in the school parking lot early that morning. They had never skied, and were not completely in approval of my new sport, but went along with it just fine. My mother was already discussing ways to accessorize my motley wardrobe, and my dad came right to the point with, “Don’t kill yourself, Bill”.I started feeling butterflies as the bus wound its way up the snowy mountain road. At the mountain, I picked up my boots and skis. Most of my friends owned their own equipment, and I immediately realized that my rentals were not exactly the top of the line. With every step I took in my boots, it felt like a wild animal was chewing at my ankles. My skis were thick and looked like they had been built in the early days of fiberglass. Instead of the fancy springs on the bottom of the skis that would turn them over if they got loose, mine had frayed, canvas straps that fastened around my ankles. I ran in place for about five minutes before I learned how to walk in my skis, creating so much friction that it melted away all the snow beneath me until I was standing in the only patch of bare grass within a 10-mile radius. People readily moved out of my way, and I wondered if my outfit had anything to do with it. Once the crowds had parted, I found myself at the red line waiting for the lift to come. But as I turned to ask the assistant for instructions, the metal chair swept me up and sent me up to the top, sprawled out on the seat with my skis pointing skyward as I held on to any piece of metal that I could find. I had equally little instruction when it came to getting off the lift. I didn’t realize I had to stand up, so I went down the ramp like a catcher in a baseball game until my skis slowly parted and I planted my face down into the snow. With every skier that came after me, I was buried deeper until I became nothing more than a Technicolor streak in the ground. My friend, Andy, dug me out and began explaining how to stop by putting the tips of my skis together. Unfortunately, I was facing with my back to the slope and a stiff wind pushed me slowly to the edge until I finally tilted backwards and began accelerating downwards. “I’m going down!” I declared. Andy looked on in horror. “Wait, Bill, I’m not done yet!”I remembered him saying something about pointing my skis, so I crossed them, but this sent me spinning like a helicopter across the mountain. Snow was flying everywhere, but I tried to make the best of the situation. I rationalized that some people have to ski for many years before mastering a trick like this. The mountain suddenly dropped out from under me, and in the next moment I found myself surrounded by rubber tubing. I looked up from the hole that I was sharing with the snow machine and saw bright, blue daylight. My skis should have come off under these circumstances, but the antique, and likely rusted, bindings held strong. I took my skis off and tossed them up, one at a time, past the rim of the hole. I scurried up to the surface and made it out just in time to see them sliding all by themselves down the mountain in different directions, the canvas straps whipping behind them. One landed softly in a pile of snow on the other side of the slope, while the other launched about 20 feet in the air and struck a tree, sending it twisting back to the ground with a cracking sound. I collected my skis, and half an hour later I was getting close to the bottom of the mountain. Some of the time I skied, some of the time I walked, and some of the time I slid. But most of the time I just fell. It was a painful and demoralizing experience. The tears were frozen to my face, and I repeated over and over again that if I ever reached the bottom, I would never go back up again. I took a break from feeling sorry for myself just in time to look up and see a class of small children gathered at the base of the mountain. They didn’t realize that they were in a direct collision course with a multicolored asteroid. I tried to slow myself down the best that I could but, of course, my skis popped off, sending me tumbling over and over down the mountain. My skis were still tethered to me by the strap and they flipped all around me like a helicopter blade as I gathered snow. I skidded to a stop in the middle of the class as the children now realized that I was a skier and not just a large, badly dressed snowball. I looked up and blew the snow off of my face. All around me were stunned kids with rosy cheeks and mucus dripping from their noses. One little boy stepped forward, wiped his nose with his mitten and said, “Hey mister, you gotta make a pizza wedge!” I thought to myself, “It doesn’t matter, kid. I’m not gonna need the advise anymore.” But on my way back to the rental shop, I hesitated a moment, turned around and ran back to the lift. _____________________Last month, I took my wife, my daughter and sons up to Massachusetts to ski. This was only their second year on skis, but they did better that I could have ever hoped and we all had lots of fun. And every time I see them laughing their way down the bunny slope, or ride with them up the lift, I can’t help but smile as I think back to that first time.