The Adventures Of Skiing

This is rather long...sorry.

Now that you heard about my cross-country skiing day. My downhill skiing was even better. As I have said that I really do not like speed going down the hill because I just don't know how to stop properly. I was telling this to my younger brother during this same winter as my parents were driving us to Burke Ski area in Vermont near Stowe. My younger brother was calling me a chicken. I was indeed but I didn't want him to know that so he dared me to go skiing. I caved in.

So, we are getting fitted for our skies and Dad strongly suggest some lessons for me. Of course, after all just the other day I stabbed my self with the pole in the boob. I needed to learn how to stop myself. So skiing lesson I was having. Now, I was one of the oldest having lessons. I was the most clumsy one of them all. The most uncoordinated one. The instructor had to pay attention to me the most. All the other students were young kids with no fear. After having like an hour and half of some brief lessons it was now time to test ourselves and go on the "Bunny Slope" Just a little hill and a very open field that I couldn't possibly kill myself or anyone for that matter.

So here we all are on the Bunny Slope practicing for a while. By George, I am getting the hang of this. I can do this I tell my self. Now, the instructor wants to bring us up to another slope. I feel a little confidence that I can do it. We have to take a chair lift up. Huh? I am terrified of heights. Oh, no, I can't go on that and look down. Well, my brother decided to join me and guide me. Tells me to make sure that I keep my skies up when we are about to get to the top, lift the bar, and take off. Simple, any moron could do it. I must have been the stupidest moron on the planet that day. Forgot to lift the skies up and they get jammed into the snow and I fall flat on my face. I am sure I gave a few people some laughs. I do however remember people rushing over to me and helping me up.

Now, the trick to get back down to the bottom was going to be one challenge for me. I am skiing along and I see that I am doing fairly good and I am picking up speed, then I am coming around a corner and wham I slammed into a tree. I had blacked out and finally came too with all these people looking at me. I didn't know what happened and then it came to me that I had just kissed a tree. I just got up really fast and really embarrassed and skied on. I finally get to the bottom of the hill and there were my parents waiting and there was Mom with this horrible look on her face again. They rush over to me and I had no idea why they had the horrible look on their face. Well, when I had kissed that tree I had this huge lump on my forehead and blood was dripping down my face and I really didn't feel that blood. My brother had been way ahead of me and waited at the bottom of hill but never saw me come down and he went back up and found my hat and was freaking out because he thought that I had gotten hurt and raced back to the lodge and found us. I got all cleaned up and decided I wasn't going on that hill again and I would go on a smaller mountain.

The weird thing happened. I ran into a class mate of mine from High School there so we paired up and went skiing together and we forgot to get off the lift and went to another slope. We are standing at the top of the mountain. I knew right there and then that I was going to die because we see this sign saying "Expert Trail" Of all rotten luck. Someone helps her down the slope but leaves me at the top. I finally said Fuck It and started taking off my skies and would walk down the slope or die. I was on that slope for an hour and then my friend got a rescue team to go up and find me since she never saw me come down. How embarrassing again. Of course these two good looking guys have to come up and help me down the expert slope making me zig zag down. Of course I made it down alive since I am writing this aren't I.

Of course, I once again scared the pants off my parents. You know how many times they could have been rushed to the hospital because of me that day? Oh wait, I am not finished yet. We decided to have lunch and then my parents want to go cross-country skiing at a near by area. So, my brother, sister, and I had to stay at the ski area for a couple more hours. I decided that I should stick with the Bunny Slope. After all, it was an open field with no trees or really steep slope. The other two went their own way and I stayed with my friend.

We had been skiing on this slope for a while. I had no problem and then my clumsiness kicked in again. I was skiing down and took a nasty fall. I couldn't get up. My friend saw that I was in trouble and rushed over. I told her I think I popped my knee cap out but there was no way in hell was I going to a hospital since no one would know I was there. I told her my sister and brother were skiing and Mom and Dad went off some where else. I did the worst, I slammed my knee cap back to where it was supposed to be. That pain, was so unbearable and was the dumbest thing I ever did. I managed to get up with the help of my friend and got me back to the Lodge and sat in the chair and never got back up until my family came. I wasn't limping and just told them that I feel no big deal. Nope, never went to the Doctor over this until several years later and that Dr. knew what I did with out me having to tell him. Yup, I screwed up my knee for life. It doesn't sit in the socket like it is suppose too and I still to this day haven't had the surgery to fix it. Aren't I a dumb ass!

Just a note...I haven't gone skiing since 1975...and you wonder why?