Why I Love Winter

 

 

My friends know about the summer activities I loathe: I’m a lousy swimmer. Camping requires too much planning. Sunning myself at the beach is boring. And of boats, “What is a boat but a prison with a chance of being drowned?” asked writer Samuel Johnson.

 

So what do I prefer? Winter! It’s time to ski! Almost 82, I managed five runs on a small hill in West Virginia last weekend, but I am certainly slowing down. I hit the slopes maybe 200 to 300 times all over the country for 50 years.

 

I was never really an expert. When you start at age 29, you worry with every turn about how you will get home if you break your leg. I never did get injured—except inn cross-country skiing when I damaged some ribs. A guide at Aspen took us down an icy road and we were stopped in our tracks when we hit bare pavement.

 

Why do people ski in the first place? Because it is so much fun when you stop. You retire to an indoor fireplace, have a drink and snacks and chat about all of the horrors you faced: Freezing air, bone-chilling wind and the thrill of risking your life on every mogul.

 

Some unforgettable moments for me:

 

—On Jan. 20, 1985, President Reagan’s inaugural parade was cancelled because of the extreme cold. But that didn’t stop me from taking 13-year-old stepson Chris and his friend Joe to Ski Liberty in Pennsylvania.  “Well, you promised,” one of them said. It was not crowded at all. It was miserable. One of Chris’ feet was numb for a week.

 

—One weekend I skied at Mammoth Mountain in California, one of the largest resorts in the country. On a slow weekday, there were only two of us on one wide ski run. Of course, the other skier, a middle-aged beginner, crashed into me and knocked me down. No apology at all.

 

—I skied in 5-below-zero weather at Stowe resort in Vermont. The instructor made us check for frostbite after every run. They put blankets on top of everyone on the ski lift.

 

—At one resort I somehow took a lift to the highest peak. The only way down was over a cornice that seemed as vertical as a brick wall. Somehow I managed it.

 

—One time at Aspen, Colo.,  I got terribly sick with the flu. Enormous amounts of powder snow fell on the same day. An article in Ski magazine the next year wrote about “The greatest day in the history of skiing.” I missed it!

 

—You might spend 20 minutes freezing in a lift line to spend only 3 minutes gliding in snow.

 

—The worst part of skiing is putting on your boots. Or maybe it is driving ridiculous distances to get there. Or maybe spending more than you can afford.

 

After all this adversity, why did I keep up with this ridiculous sport? I liked:

 

—Skiing  along the top ridge at Heavenly Valley in California, gazing at the deep blue Lake Tahoe below on one side and the arid Carson Valley in Nevada on the other.

 

—The wonderful feeling of gliding through virgin powder snow as if you were sailing through the air.

 

—Imagining yourself as Jean-Claude Killy, Picabo Street or Bode Miller as you race through a tough mogul patch in triumph.

 

—Getting a good workout at a time of year when most people want to vegetate in front of the TV.

 

I always thought I would have to give up skiing when I got married and had a family. My wife is not a skier. But then I got an idea: Take small children with you and put them in a ski class. Then it becomes a family event. Pickett would come along and spend the weekend in the hot tub.

 

Then these kids continued skiing as adults and taught it to their kids. I came along too. I have often gone to Sun Valley, Idaho, with Chris, Nina and their four boys. I went with Sara, Lance and their two children to Winterplace, near Blacksburg, last week.

 

 What have I started?

 

 

 

 

The "California Experience"

As many of you know, I grew up in California. Here is my story of what I call “the Great Hill Slide of 1958.”

 

We moved happily from a flat area to the hills in El Cerrito in1955, loving the fabulous view of the SanFrancisco Bay. The neighborhood, just below King Drive, was wonderful, and the house (7858 Burns Ct.) was just right for us. The grassy PG&E right of way behind us was a great playground before Moeser Lane was extended.

 

But then…heavy rains came in the winter of 1958. Our sidewalk and our patio were cracking. Our house was apparently built on top of a filled-in creek that apparently wasn’t dead!

 

We were lucky! Our house was in the middle of that creek, and we slid with it.  But the two houses below ours were at the edge of that creek and split through the middle, one with a foot-wide crack. I think they became uninhabitable. The city manager’s home below theirs was spared, I believe.

 

Things were even worse on Earl Court below us, where several homes were destroyed.

 

There were lawsuits against the city, the builder and the soil analysts. I think there was a settlement, but I don’t remember details.

 

Amazingly, we were able to find a buyer for our house. We moved to El Sobrante, near an earthquake fault below San Pablo Dam. I tell people here in the East that this was our “California experience.”

Not All Chistmases Are Merry

Holidays can be tough if you are single. Since I didn’t marry until age 43, I know.

Sure, I can get saturated now with Christmas celebrations, but there was the time:

—I was sick in Pittsburgh and had Christmas dinner at a Stouffer’s restaurant by myself, consoled by a sympathetic waiting staff.

—A visiting colleague became ill in Las Vegas and we had Thanksgiving dinner at a cheap diner. He was so sick that he didn’t even remember it later.

—In Washington, I had nowhere to go until I practically invited myself to someone’s Christmas dinner at a Christmas Eve service.

—In the 24-hour-a-day news business, I was assigned to work some Christmases by bosses who figured single people didn’t have a family anyway.

—I enjoyed Christmas with some friends in Delaware until one of the kids climbed into a car on a hilly driveway. Somehow, he released the emergency brake and crashed the car into another across the street. That can ruin a party!

—But then there was another time in Dover, Del., when I

 went to Christmas dinners on three consecutive nights. People were friendly and charitable to a 21-year-old near-stranger.

   At least I have been guaranteed company of some kind in the 38 years I have been married. While over-exuberant celebrations may irritate me on a holiday, some people may be having Christmas dinner alone in a restaurant like Stouffer’s.

Raving about my adopted state

 

Virginia, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways:

1.   The weather is moderate. It may be less volatile in my home state of California, but Virginia’s winters aren’t as bad as North Dakota’s, and its summers aren’t as bad as Mississippi’s.

2.   It is friendly to business. It is no coincidence that Amazon picked Arlington for its second headquarters (unfortunately only four blocks from where I used to live.) The Washington Capitals and Washington Wizards plan to move to nearby Alexandria.

3.   Virginia has been the birthplace of eight U.S. presidents. William Henry Harrison, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Zachary Taylor, John Tyler, George Washington and Woodrow Wilson. That’s a lot more than its share out of 50 states.

4.   It’s full of history. There are many historic homes such as Monticello and Montpelier, and numerous battlefields and Civil War landmarks. My favorite is Appomattox.

5.   There is varied terrain for vacations. You’ll find good beaches and lots of mountains (well, they would call them hills in California.) And the Shenandoah Valley in between.

6.   Universities are excellent. Especially the University of Virginia, the College of William and Mary and Virginia Tech.

7.   It is full of scenic wonders. My favorites are the Blue Ridge Mountains, Luray Caverns and the Great Falls on the Potomac River.

8.   There are so many elegant places to stay. I’ve slept in most of them: the Jefferson in Richmond, the Homestead in Hot Springs, the Williamsburg Inn, the Boar’s Head Inn in Charlottesville, and The Inn at Little Washington (where I only dined.)

9.   Colonial Williamsburg is wonderful. You can go back in time to an exciting era of the state’s history. Jamestown and Yorktown are nearby.

10.                 It is a purple state. Republicans and Democrats are fairly evenly balanced. It is a state in which you can make a difference.

 

Good old days? Well, maybe not

“Music from the 1950s” was the theme from a circus we attended in Salem, VA., a few weeks ago.

“Why did they pick the ‘50s?” I wondered. “They must have thought times were better then,” my wife, Pickett, said

Really? Well, yes, there were some great things about the 1950s:

— World War II was over, and we were now the most powerful country in the world. Jobs were plentiful and we had a president, Dwight Eisenhower, whom my sister said would make a good grandfather.

—Kids could run loose all day and didn’t need sports leagues and adults driving them everywhere. (There were probably predators then, too, but we just didn’t know about them.)

—We had the calming “Ozzie and Harriet” and “Leave it to Beaver” with no profanity, and stories that were easy to follow. The live shows on “Playhouse 90.” and others were wonderful.

—Air travel was fun. And there were Disney, jazz and plentiful cars.

But were these times really better than today? Let’s look at the other side of the ‘50s.

—Polio. Some kids in my town were afflicted with it. There were people living in iron lungs.

—The Red Scare and McCarthyism. I remember my parents burning an innocuous book that they thought could get them into trouble.

— Racial discrimination. Blacks were barred from many schools.

—Lesser roles for women.  They were stereotyped as housewives.

—Smoke-filled rooms. This was before the dangers of second-hand smoke were discovered.

—Wars seemingly everywhere (just like now.) Algeria, Malaysia, Indo-China, Korea.

—Cold War. We feared that we would never grow up because we would be annihilated by atomic bombs.

—Party lines. You couldn’t make a call if someone else was using a phone. When you could, others could listen in. And it was so inefficient to need switchboard operators!

—No dishwashers. You cleaned dishes by hand. “Oh, the humanity!”

—Boring pop music. Mitch Miller converted Columbia Records into a factory for bland, inoffensive songs. Doris Day, Frankie Laine, Guy Mitchell, Ray Conniff.  This was before rock ‘n’ roll.

—Lower life expectancy. Children born then could expect to live to 68, Now it’s 77.

—Limited communications. How did we live without smart phones and wi-fi? There were three TV channels, and they went on the air at 5 p.m. in 1950. You could watch a test pattern the rest of the day. (Well, maybe not so bad. You could also read a book!)

 

 

 

Fun for the holidays-- by yourself.

 

Yay, everybody’s here! What fun we’ll have. I love holidays.

Well, that’s the first day. You know how it is. By Day 4, you want to say: “I’m sick of your story about your hemorrhoids!” Or “If you are so mad at him, why don’t you get a divorce? Or “Will you kids stop spilling Legos all over the floor?” “The dog peed on the rug again?” “Why did you eat the rest of the turkey and leave the stuffing for me?”

 

For everyone’s sake, I take a break during Thanksgiving or Christmas here. A mental health break. They understand.

 

I used to go to Danville on the Friday after Thanksgiving every year to get our car serviced at the Honda dealer. It was wonderful. In the waiting room they had coffee, snacks and popcorn. Magazines, TV and wi-fi. You can browse for new cars. What more could you want?

The service rep would come to me after a couple of hours and say, “Sir, your car is ready for pickup.” I wanted to say: “Already? Please. I am in the middle of my Candy Crush game.”

When we got a Tesla, which did not require servicing, I stayed overnight at the Bee Hotel in Danville last year. I went to a movie, ate dinner at Outback Steak House and breakfast at Link’s Coffee House Café.

 

Then I returned home happily. “Tell me about your hemorrhoids. How are they?” And I might have said: “I’m sorry about your marital troubles. Thinking about you.” “Kids let me see what you can build with your Legos.”

 

Nobody complained that I skipped out on them. They knew me well.

-0-

An aside: Did you know that you are not allowed to stay at most Danville hotels if you’re ID says you are from South Boston? 

 

Several times I wanted to stay overnight after a ball game or movie so I wouldn’t have to drive home in the dark. When I was turned down at one place, the people behind me in line were as stunned as I was. “We don’t like your kind here” was how I took it. Maybe they’re jealous of The Prizery. Did our football team whip theirs? Maybe if I got a fake ID?

 

The management wouldn’t tell me why—“just policy.” I kind of thought they were worried about drug deals or prostitution. No, according to Google, many hotels ban guests who live within 50 miles because they are worried about local people holding a wild party and trashing the place.

Do I look like I am going to trash your hotel room? Well, rules are rules, I guess. Motel 6 and the Bee don’t worry about that, though.

-0-

Note: After I published this column on an introverts’ Facebook page, someone wrote a comment. She wishes she had a noisy family to get away from. She has to spend holidays alone. Gave me some perspective.

Asl dumb questions, get smart answers

I think of my ninth-grade substitute teacher in algebra when I have to write about something I don’t understand.

She admitted she couldn’t fathom the depths of this incomprehensible subject when she came to us in an emergency. She spent that night poring over algebra textbooks trying to come up with a lesson that wouldn’t make her look like a fool.

The next day, she shared with us what she had learned, and it was crystal clear. She had started at our level of understanding and learned along with us. I wasn’t very good at algebra, but I sure got this lesson.

I have prided myself with doing my best work on things I know absolutely nothing about. Biotechnology, supercomputers, high finance — you name it. I dig in and am forced to ask stupid questions.

I remember asking a governor of the Federal Reserve Board: “So why does the Fed need to control interest rates at all?” Nobody had ever asked him that before, apparently. I got a solid, quotable answer (but I don’t remember what he said.)

When Sen. Barry Goldwater made a snide remark about Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, I asked ignorantly, “What do you have against McNamara?” He responded. “McNamara is an (expletive).” Great quote.

I remember trying to find out how consumers could use some exotic new Silicon Valley invention. An executive there didn’t like my question. “You don’t know what you are talking about,” he said and then hung up. Bet they went out of business in a hurry.

But sometimes I knew too much. I wrote a kind story about my great aunt’s 105th birthday and dutifully sent it in to the Oakland Tribune. The paper treated it as a press release and sent someone to write their own story. The reporter focused on her love of wrestling on TV. “But not women wrestlers,” she said. “It’s not lady-like.” I guess I knew she watched wrestling, but I never would have thought to write about it.

Speaking of substitute teachers, I have admired people who can step in at the last minute to explain a variety of subjects. Students do feel like they have the day off, and I can remember everybody in class going up to the pencil sharpener at the same time as kind of a prank.

But there are gems. I never liked my fifth grade teacher, who had back trouble and was grumpy all the time. We were always delighted when she was home sick because her substitute would read wonderful stories to us. The regular teacher was so ill that the substitute got all the way through Paul Bunyan in one year. I don’t remember the class work, but I remember Paul Bunyan.