Flexibility is the Key to long life

A Mentor/Friend has told me “flexibibility if the key to long life” many times, and it has really home home in the recent past.

Flexibility #1
My son and I have been going to a Ski lodge about an hour drive and a 40 minute Sno-cat ride (the good lord willing and the radiator don’t break) for the past year and a half. I Got my son “new” skis ( they were two year old demos that I found on e-bay…and since I got him such a good deal, I had to do the same for myself). The plan was to give him the Skis on Christmas, and then announce that we’d head to the hills for the next two days. But with the pre-Christmas storm that we had in the Northwest, the lodge would be closed until the New Years weekend.

Flexibility #2

We had an uneventful trip up the pass, and hit the parking lot with a few minutes to spare. The air was fresh with the exhaust and wine of snowmobiles, and yet here was the pack of motley skiers, snowboarders, telemarkers, snowshoers and sleders….at last the Cat arrives, but….as pilot Jim unclips, he announces that the radiator has leaked all its fluid, we need 6 more quarts……but the fluid is uphill three miles away. A hero approaches after 20 minutes, one of the community has a snowmobile – he blasts up the mountain, and appears 20 minutes later with fluid, and the cavalry in the form of the lodges much small “Pack Rat” cat…. We got the Tom Cat (big cat) ready to go, piled on and up we went, until..

Flexibility # 3

Green fluid dribbles behind and the temp gauge hits the red…..everyone off….1.5 miles up the hill….Gear gets shifted to the small cat, and we put our skis, and get pulled up the hill “water skier style” the rest of the way to the lodge…of course we left the carcass of Tom Cat to be repaired by (I kid you not)..The crack team of college student mechanics/snoboarders & crusty Boeing engineers…hoping that they would get it completed by the time we needed to get down the hill the next evening...

Flexibility # 4

After getting to the lodge, and finding all the “good” bunks were taken both my son and I found ourselves in upper , single bunks….we both skied hard that afternoon and returned to the lodge for evening chips & salsa – As I relaxed , reading “The best food writing of 2006” (a wonderful gift from my wife) , soon I was being addressed..”Are you Jamies Dad? He is being given first aid.” My immediate thoughts are – I hope he’s OK, I hope it’s not serious, where is he …he was just going to get a book! (My Wife is going to kill me!!!!!!!)…which quickly is answered – “he’s fine but a bit freaked out… he cut his foot getting off is bunk (turns out he had a bump on his foot that got scraped off. We all made it through, however there was no waltzing for him that night (nor me, though I enjoyed watching from the sidelines, but that’s another story)

Flexibility #5

I was up early (5:45) on Sunday morning to help with making breakfast for 65, and to try to make the mythical “first tracks” - my new welders gloves ($ 4.50 at Tacoma Screw…thanks guys) were gripping the rope tow firmly- yes rope tow- not a fancy, detachable six pak chairlift, not even an old riblet double chair (riblet tramways, Spokane Washington – originally built mining equipment). This place is served by three rope tows which lend even more to the culture of the hill. I head up to the top of the Mach tow- so named because of the speed at which it travels, get off, and look across the valley to some part of the Cascades that I should know the name of, but they are just the “mountains across the valley” ( which reminds me of a Dale Turner story for another day)…So I push off and head down “the Lane” – I can see my son below me on another run, I take a deep breath, relax, and keep the knees loose, upper body quiet and imagine the Warren Miller camera below…until…. I start to look like a cartoon snowball, as I fall without grace, and land with a face plant beyond compare…yes flexibility of the mind, and the body is important to long life!

…………….So after reading this entry, you may ask what could be so rewarding to justify such flexibility – well that is a future entry, so keep checking back……