Do You Want Helmets?

I want my kids to enjoy skiing.  I was given an opportunity and for a while some pressure, to fall in love with it, and eventually I did.  I’ve taken my family to the same place I went to as a kid, there at Suicide Six, in South Pomfret Vermont.  My aunt has a place that is right across the street from the mountain.  I haven’t been here in at least thirty years and this morning it is starting to snow, hard.

My older one does not want to ski, least of all at a place called “Suicide Six.” The younger one isn’t sure its’ such a great idea either.  My wife is cautiously pessimistic.   I make them some coffee and some eggs and some toast and wait for everyone to slowly rise and shine.  “It’s gonna be great snow today.”  “Do we have to?”  “Yes.  That’s what we drove three and a half hours up here to do.”  “Who wants to go to the general store with me?  It’s right across the road.  Let’s check it out . . . “  Silence.  My aunt stops by here at the neighbor's house she’s hooked us up with to check in on us. 

Eventually we’re plodding down the road in the snow, en route to the mountain.  The entrance is about two hundred years down.  I drove up here in my mom’s Honda sedan and though it isn’t even a half a mile, I know it’s best I don’t drive in this weather.

The mountain looks good.  I don’t know if there was much cover yesterday, but there is certainly plenty of solid cover on all the trails today.  The big broad black diamond Face, has folks coming down and I’m looking forward to getting up there. But as we walk in the lodge it’s clear we’re not yet quite ready to buy tickets and hit the slopes.  My wife suggests we sit down at the restaurant and have lunch.  I labor and find the ability to resist the urge to point out that we just had breakfast.  “Sure.  Great idea.  Right here by the slopes.”

I have a call to make in thirty minutes.  I have a cup of clam chowder and try to make small talk about what a cool and authentic scene it is.  “It’s not like skiing in Korea or China, is it?”  “What’s wrong with skiing there?”  “Oh, nothing. Nothing.  It’s just that this is very traditional."  I say this, consider the fact that skiing is a Nordic implant to Vermont.  

Now I’m on a call with someone in San Francisco, pitching my abilities in China.  My kids slurp soup and contemplate the blizzard out the window.  A guy in a remarkable lime and pink ski suit sits down with his family at the next table.  They seem a bit more serious then we do.  I’m at the adjoining two-person table trying to gain some privacy but now the lunch place is filling up and I retreat to our family table. 

I’m done. “So.  How’s everyone doing?”  Silence.  My daughters are staring out the window.  It looks inhospitable.  Under any other circumstances, one would never think to go out in weather such as this.  Skiing though, we are supposed to invert this natural impulse and regard it as a boon.  “Amazing we’ve got all this snow.”  I add.  Unconvincingly.  Someone tears down the mountain and comes to a quick stop not far from the window.  Another family plods by slowly, close to the glass. 

Then, miraculously, my older daughter says: “I guess we could try.”  “Well then.  OK.”  I get into the line for equipment and get everyone is soon being fitted out.  “Do you want helmets?”  Asks the big kid my size.  “No.  We don’t need any.”  “Dad?!”  “You really want helmets.”   “We never had helmets.”  “Ba_ba??!!”  OK. Ok.  “Three helmets then.  No.  I don’t need one.”

Outside what can only be described as a blizzard is picking up.  “Are we getting goggles?”  Do you really need them?” I ask, already well aware of the answer.  “Uh, do you rent goggles as well?”  “No you gotta buy them.”  “Of course.”  My wife is already over at the goggle rack. “What are the cheapest pair you have?”    They start at seventy dollars a pair.  “Will you be needing four pair?  No, no.  Three will be fine.”        

                                                                                                         

Outside we get our skis on and plod over to the J-bar at the bunny slope.  No one has ridden one in years and while I am helping my little one along, I catch my older daughter fumbling and falling, face down.  My younger daughter does a run and I catch up to her.  She says her feet hurt.  I tell her she’ll work it out.  “You’re not listening.  They really hurt.”  “OK.  Well, do you want me to loosen the boots?” “Yes!”  I do.  It makes no difference. “They-still-hurt.”   “Maybe we need to tighten them a bit?”  She calls me by my first and last name.  “My feet hurt!”  “OK.  Well then.  What would you like to do?”  “Go inside!”  Reluctantly we trod back to the lodge.  The older one is game to take on the chair lift to the summit.  I let the younger one go inside for a rest with her mother.