In Living Color
Aging Ski Bum
Viewing the world through blue-tinted ski goggles
As anyone who knows me can attest, one of my great passions in life is alpine skiing. For the past six or so decades, I have carved, glided, raced, slalomed, and traversed my way down mountains large and small. I have skied trails wide and narrow, steep and flat, groomed and ungroomed. I have conquered bumps and skidded over ice. I have navigated trees and plowed through powder. I have fallen down and picked myself back up all over the world.
Which means I also have a lifetime of photos. And, since the invention of the cell phone, a plethora of selfies.
My older sister, a ski instructor back then, was responsible for dragging me, at 12 years old, up my first ski slope at Glenshee, Scotland. (Yes, we do have ski slopes in Scotland.) Her so-called instruction consisted of taking me up the T-bar ski lift to the top of the Sunnyside slope, where she demonstrated a snowplough, the most rudimentary of turns. “Off you go,” she said, as she disappeared down the hill, leaving me to, presumably, snowplough my way down. (She may remember it differently, but each to his own.)
