Saturday, February 25, 2006

Alpine Fool's Gold

This weekend the rdr family celebrates our annual ski trip to Brokeleg Mountain. Nothing can beat taking the whole family and some dozen or so college and high school age hangers-on to a small condominium high in the snowy Appalachians where they can fight over who swiped whose hats/gloves/bibs because whose whose hats/golves/bibs were put away wet the night before. The beer does, however, always taste better up here.


Really, nothing could interfere with the joy I feel at racing down the Double Diamonds, showing off such patented moves as "The Break Dancing Triple Head Spin and Royal Kristie," shown at left. I was the first to attempt this show-stopping manuver back in 1983, accompanied to "Maniac" from the "Flashdance" soundtrack. Although many have attempted to recreate the feat in Olympic competititon, the pure silk of my original moves has never been duplicated. Without question, every chair lift within sighting distance cheers when I emerge unscathed from this death-defying stunt.





Another patented move that reflects my life long passsion with basball is "The Pete Rose," shown at left. Pete, as you will remember, was famous for his head first slide into the bases, which probably hepled him gain "The Dirtiest Uniform Award" year after year. I have loving recreated Mr. Rose's spirited enthusiasm with my own special tribute to "Charlie Hustle." Of course, there is insuffficient dirt on the ski slopes to fully apprciate the selfless efforts of this deserving player, but I make up for that by pointing my face towards a chairlift station, snow maker, or small child learning to do the snow plow. Needless to say, it's a real crowd pleaser.






But it's important that someone of my stature in the world of alpine sport should give back to the skiing community. This is one of my strongest principles, and I routinely hold "yard sales" on the slopes to raise awareness of crippling diseases. At left is pictured this year's effort, which brought in such sizable donations that I was not required to perform for the rest of the day.


Night skiing begins in 15 minutes.

And I be in fine form, as usual.
You're on Notice.

7 comments:

Cassandra said...

My favorite skiing line harks back to a family trip to Taos NM. It's a great experience if you ever get the chance - a week of world-class French cuisine, great people, and the much-feared Taos Ski School, where, riding up the lift with my instructor, I first heard the words that were to echo in my ears for the next 5 days:

"Ah...Taos. Where men are men, and women are terrifed."

Heh...

KJ said...

Been skiing once. As Joe Piscapoe's charachter then said in Johnny Dangerously, "once!"

Come back in one piece.

spd rdr said...

The pieces have arrived safetly!
Apart from some significant sun/wind burn on the old kisser, and strange feelings in my legs that remind me I am working on the second half of my first century, all is well for an old guy who pumped 15 hours of slope time into two days.

I still got it.

Anonymous said...

"It screamed like an eagle, but it fell like a rock!"

Wherdja go, spd? Canaan Valley? Snowshoe? Wisp??? A secret location that can't be named?????
With Dick Cheney?

I went skiing at home last weekend (okay, you can stop laughing about skiing in Ohio now), and all I remember was that is was COLD. About 12F, plus a windchill, plus the manufactured windchill from racing downhill. Brrr.
-"Don Brouhaha, downhill racer"

spd rdr said...

"Skiing Ohio" sounds like it should be a name of a comedy.

/snark

Anonymous said...

It is, and was.
But the really great thing about it is...well, there's nothing great about it.

"Don Brouhaha"

spd rdr said...

Yeah there is.

It's as fast as you can go in a turtleneck and still not look like a complete dork.