176-Exploring The Art Of Collaboration

My collaboration began when I was attending writing classes at Union College in Schenectady, New York in the early 1980’s. To keep living expenses down I rented an apartment in Niskayuna, New York from my musician friend. We would often sit on the porch evenings and he would play music and I would write poetry. (Although I learned to endure the late evening renditions of Peter Gabriel's, Red Rain to all hours. ) It was only natural that we began collaborating together, not only did we collaborate on songs, but we have been fortunate enough to finish a book of short stories and a novel. Our short story The Lure of the Mountain King was awarded an honorable mention in the 57^th Writer’s Digest Contest in the General Fiction Category. We have over the years drifted apart but I have lately dusted off our early collaborations and began submitting the work. Hope you enjoy the completed Ballad. (Check Out My Stories and The Lure Of The Mountain King Novel.)

 

 Gordon Grey Music

Albert Bianchine

 

 

The Ballad Of Tom Dillon

A blinding blizzard beckons me
in to Steamboat Springs.
I arrive on the last greyhound from Vail.
My pockets full of snowflakes
a lonesome geyser’s Steamboat whistle wails
always hiding, never tears to a cowboy’s eye.
Lord don’t let me be forsaken
the Baron’s have already taken
America by rail.

My darling I grow weary
often lost without a home
but you know I’ll keep on searchin
these mountain trails alone.
I wander through green valleys
across the prairies
past the village’s
farms and fields
out beyond the concrete illusions
where the Rocky Mountains pierce
the aqua skies.

I find solace in the seclusion
of another winter’s season
another mountain to ski
as long as he will lay
fresh powder down for me.

While you seek your fortune
or search the world for fame
be careful what you wish for
because when darkness falls upon you
you’ll be wailing out his name.

Ski through barren aspens
see the forests through the pines
sitting on my golden perch
am I crying out in vain?

Sometimes you awake to find
you get what you need
other times you take what you can get
it is from the children 
they take everything.

Now I found that I possess this light
from these mountains that I bring.
My gift is in my words
and for the children
I’ll let them ring.

Go and tell everyone,
silence is a snowflake falling
until they hear me calling
to all the children I will sing.
Never take the last of anything.

These days I’m a city
pretty girl painted
street wizard inside my poems.
My freedom
most men will never know
never having been wary
of wooden box stables
fabled to contain rainbows.
Someday, when their hair turns grey
their youth will have faded away
with the colors that lost their shine.

The all American Gazebo Band

plays behind the new red white and corporate blue
flag that flies against the changing hues.
Another rock opera story
of old glory, and a town without its name.
Somewhere in time, the poet’s rhyme
makes a cosmic connection.
Then the Seer Sayers arrive on Stages
and History endures the ages.

As a simple man who dreams
beyond the Apple Tree Lane
he sees a sunrise within her eyes.
Then the hobo dude
plays Howard Hughes
attempting to fill Dylan’s shoes
to find out why they came.
But in disgrace, he falls from grace
to understand success
is not what they claim.

Listen Children

to a Thorn Bird shrilly singing

this truth you’ve heard
from a poet and his strings.

 

The name of Steamboat Springs is thought to have originated around the early 1800s when French trappers thought they heard the chugging sound of a steamboat’s steam engine. The sound turned out to be a natural mineral spring, to be named the Steamboat Spring.

In 1909, the railroad arrived, which sparked a boom for the commercial industry in Steamboat Springs. Ranching was the primary industry of the valley and the cattle ranchers turned the new railroad depot into one of the largest cattle shipping centers of the West. Consequently, the construction of the railroad silenced the Steamboat Spring’s chugging noise forever.

City of Steamboat Springs Website

 

 

 

Trading Trinkets, Tall Tales, Telling Lies

 

Downtown any town’s Main street

this town, down

passed a shellacked shiny brass handled

carved crescent moon wooden door of

“The Ancient Mariner”

across the street from an old fashioned Bijou

sequenced white bulb Marquee

Flashing, “Fiddler on the Roof.”

 

Butted by a brand new brown concrete, steel, Lake Placid Hilton

descending down two flights

of green canopied wooden stairs.

 

“The Artist’s Café”

lapped white waves of Mirror Lake

reflecting the lights of “The Cottage”

and the excitement of the 1980 Winter Olympics

across from the Lake Placid Club

its walls filled with the owner’s original art

bustling buxom waitresses.

 

Comrade Ivan leaping to his feet

touching my pins from Solitude and Brighton

would I care to trade for his shiny Soviet bears

slapping him on the back saying,

“certainly mine were worth a bit more, perhaps

one, possibly two martini’s.”

 

Telling tales till they became martooni’s

 

The bustling waitress asking,

“Was I, could I be, an Olympic Athlete?”

Me smiling devilishly saying,

“Why, yes,

would she,

care to come to my room.

to view my gold medals from Europe.

 

 

                                             To Winter My Revenge

 

I had once

so long ago it seems

enjoyed the cool aroma

tasted the nectar sweet

of personal destiny achieved

 

These Words!

 

So at last I come to understand

after all these travels

all these achievements

that most men only dream…

 

I’ve been wasting the years

trying to go back

rolling the bitter ugly taste

over and over

my tired palette

 

“Reliving is not Life”

 

I am… To tell this tale

… to pound one nail

… to Winter My Revenge. 

Red Rain, Peter Gabriel

99- What Are The Dreams Of An Odd Beat Poet?

      I remember a line to a song that said, "such are the dreams of the every day housewife you see anywhere any time of the day." What are exactly the Dreams of an Odd Beat Poet. I always thought my dreams were of the white. Snow, skiing, mountain sides covered in white snow, being above timberline. A climber friend of mine in Vail once told me, "I get very quite above 20,000 feet in elevation." Do you think? The silence of mountaineering and the white and the solitude and the quite is deafening to me. It touches me deep in my soul. My back pages are filled with mountain scenes. I have consciously chosen places to live where mountaineering and skiing were a by product. Dreaming of my golden years and acclimating to being around people and society in Oregon, preferably Eugene, I still have mountains on my mind. How about the Three Sisters in the Cascades, Mount Hood and Mount Bachelor? What is it about not letting it go. Do you ever really give up your first love? In Vail I had Vail Mountain, Beaver Creek, and the Beaver Creek Children's Theatre. I'm sensing a theme here. Is old age spent in trying to recapture your youth? Ah to be twenty five again. I was in the best shape of my life for skiing in Aspen at forty after taking my wife's skiing conditioning class at the Aspen Athletic Club. I would like to think that I move on. However my obsessions are still my obsessions. I am a schemer, a dreamer. Dreaming about the ocean and walking on the beach and writing short stories and conquering the writing challenges that I envisioned for myself in my youth. I still find myself googling Mount Ranier and wondering how hard it would be to climb. I find myself taking long walks with Kathy these days under the pretense of staying in shape. I secretly think the Odd Beat Poet is plotting advanced workouts to get in shape for a major climb, somewhat similar to a Walter Mitty adventure. He googles late at night, "The oldest man to climb Mount Everest."

What are you doing? Those days are gone, not forgotten but gone.

Why is it that men attach feminine characteristics to inanimate objects. I know that almost every mountain that I have climbed or skied, I have at some point looked back at it and said, "isn't she beautiful." My most favorite ski run has to be the Pallavicini at Arapahoe Basin. Even tho it is next to impossible to rule out Utah and British Columbia, run for run my heart belongs to the Pali. I think that because in the early days you would have to start at the top of Montezuma Bowl traverse the cornice run to access the Pali. It was a long traverse with a giant tuck and a herring bone climb, if you didn't hit it hard enough to reach the top of the Pali.
All good things eventually come to and end. In bounds skiing gave way to out of bounds, open snow fields and steeper runs with deeper snows. Long climbs and incredibly steep unforgiving chutes, couloirs. Places where you came to the bottom rested on your ski poles your knees knocking together and your heart racing in your chest and couldn't wait to climb back up and do it again. Even those came to and end with age, fear, and disability. The body and mind betrays you. A ski patrolman friend of mine always said, "there are old ski patrolman and bold ski patrolman, but there aren't any old bold ski patrolman."
There is a new youth and they are more daring than my friends and I ever thought of being. I secretly envy them and wish I had thought of skiing off cliffs with parachutes or gliding suits. There are amazing young men and women accomplishing feats of daring that are astounding.
The Walter Mitty Odd Beat Poet flashes back to reality and he is walking along the Colorado River, with his champagne toy poodle and wife of twenty-six years, in Laughlin Nevada in the desert and avoiding other people so we don't get. Covid. We still talk about Oregon and will go there this summer. The Russians have invaded Ukraine and I am letting life flow with the Beautiful River. Since the beginning of the Pandemic Kathy and I have watched the news and said is it time to stand up hug each other and wail? We came very close watching the invasion lately. A full scale assault on Innocence, Freedom, Sovereignty and Democracy. If I was younger I would go and fight. I had a high draft lottery for the Vietnam war and did not have to go. I went to ski! It is out of my control,  at least I will write today. My writing is getting good. Hopefully, I'll write about my Love of Mountains.

Take the time to watch this young skier.
Skier Takes An Insane Run Down A Tiny Gap Between 2 Mountains

A Song of and Odd Beat Poets Love.
Judy Collins and Leonard Cohen "Suzanne"

79- Bobaloo and the Blue Leader..

 

For Robert J Bauer

Thank You for introducing me to Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons of Utah

"Steep and Deep"

                                 Bobaloo and the Blue Leader

                                          Albert Bianchine

    

      Boom! The report of the seventy-five millimeter recoilless rifle echoed through Big Cottonwood Canyon in the Wasatch National Forest of Utah. Bobaloo looked across the expanse of the slope of Evergreen to Mount Millicent where the Blue Leader and Brighton Ski Patrol were performing avalanche work. A giant slab of snow fractured and cascaded down across Lone Pine sending snow and debris all along the big scree slope. He flexed his hand against the cold, reached into his pack and removed a one half -kilogram charge of DHP plastic explosive.

     Tightly gripping the pull start igniter, he jerked his hand and tossed the charge into the hillside. Wumph! A muffled explosion created a twenty- foot crater in the snow. He skied over to the hole and examined the edges of the hole closely and gazed across the fall line of the slope. There were no cracks or large fractures apparent. Three and one half feet of light powder had fallen overnight. It was resting on a sunbaked base of granular crystals that resembled little ball bearings, and was extremely unstable. Bobaloo reached down to his chest and picked up the radio hanging from its sling.

     “Brighton two, this is Brighton three.”

     “Go ahead three,” Patrick the blue leader answered.

     “I’ve just finished bombing Evergreen and it appears stable.”

     “Roger that Bobaloo, I’ll meet you at the big rock below the dead tree where Sol bright cuts into Brighton.”

     “Ok,” Bobaloo grinned.

     He slipped his pack over his parka and his grin widened. The ivory crystal shimmered and sparkled in the spring sunshine, a waiting silvery silken sea of chowder. Reaching down, he fastened the heelpieces of his mountaineering bindings to his boots on his powder skis. The traversing and climbing had ended. It was time to jump into the steep chute and waiting powder in front of him. He dropped in quickly and cut across the top of the slope at an angle, dragging his downhill pole. Nothing moved. Reaching forward with his pole to plant it, he felt it disappear into a bottomless sea of white. He quickly made his first turn around the pole. He followed rapidly with the second, and then third as his speed increased rapidly. The hillside fell away faster and faster and the slope grew steeper and steeper. A large plume of snow arose and splashed into his face at every turn. He howled in sheer delight. He had traveled several hundred yards down the chute avoiding the jagged rocks that lined the narrow path at every precarious turn. It leveled slightly and opened into a large meadow lined by pines. The boulder appeared one hundred yards away.

     Suddenly there was a wet stinging against his neck and Bobaloo heard a loud hissing sound. He strained and struggled to make the boulder. Snow erupted around him as an avalanche exploded from the mouth of the chute spilling into the meadow. Trees snapped all around him as snow pushed him down the hill. He dove behind the boulder as a giant wall of snow broke over the top and roared over him. The morning sunshine disappeared.

     Kodi Do stopped at the edge of the meadow; large chunks of rubble blocked the path. She raised her head and sniffed for the scentof man. The muscles of the big German Shepherd’s chest strained against the blue harness that held her avalanche beacons. The trained avalanche rescue dog leapt over fallen trees and around debris searching for him. She stopped by several large rocks that had been pushed up by the slide. Kodi Do caught the scent of man and bound to an object sticking from the snow. The dog stuck its nose into Bobaloo’s wet Sherpa hat and goggles. She raised her head and barked sharply and loudly several times. The blue leader skied to a stop above the meadow. When he saw Kodi Do searching the area, he picked up his radio.

      “Brighton one, this is Brighton two.”

     “Go ahead, blue leader,” the radio crackled, “I’m on Evergreen above Sol bright. There’s been an avalanche and I believe Bobaloo is buried.”

     “I copy two; will send assistance, one clear.”

     The blue leader turned to Kodi Do.

     “What did you find girl?”

     The dog barked loudly and ran down the hill. She stopped by an object and began barking again. Patrick skied carefully down to where the dog stood and removed his skis. He could see Bobaloo’s ski goggles.

     Bobaloo listened to the pounding of his heart in his chest his breath came slowly and agonizingly. He had managed to clear a two- foot area in front of his face and chest as he had fallen, to form a small cavern. The snow had settled into a concrete coffin all around his lower body. His leg throbbed with pain he suspected it was broken. He tried to breathe slowly, knowing that soon he would exhaust his air supply.

     Kodi Do dug frantically at the base of the boulder. Patrick pulled the pack from his back and laid it in front of him. He removed his rescue shovel and telescoped the handle out until it snapped in place. Carefully, he began digging beside the dog.

     Bobaloo slowly stopped breathing and drifted into unconsciousness. His small cavern was brightly illuminated by the sunlight streaming in as Patrick gently cleared the snow from around his face. He performed a chin lift on Bobaloo and cleared his airway. Bobaloo choked and gasped in a large breath of air. The blue leader grabbed his radio.

     “Brighton two, to Brighton one, I’ve found him. He’s alive! Bobaloo’s alive! We'll need a Life Flight as soon as you can.”

Blue Sky, Allman Brothers

78 - Where is Jackson Hole? The Last Sweep

                        

                                                            

For Ed Cox

"The Bucklemeister"

Thank You for the Western Trip In your

Volkswagen Bus to the Mountains of Colorado, Utah,

and Wyoming. I never really came back.

                                                           The Last Sweep

                                                          Albert Bianchine

     Tom Dillon skied up to the Plateau and rested his weight on his poles. He glanced out across the Teton Village, Jackson Lake, the National Elk Refuge, and the Hog Backs. Kicking down hard on the edge of his skis, he stepped out of his bindings. He flexed forward in his boots and felt the familiar ease of pressure on his shins. Standing erect, he reached up and loosened the straps of his backpack. He tossed it into the freshly fallen powder. The crystals whooshed in a billowy cloud as it hit the ground. Tom reached down and scooped up a large armful between his gloved hands and parka. He blew strongly on the crystals and watched them dissipate into the dry, crisp, Wyoming air.

     “Yi Ha!” he yelled heartily, his smile as big as the Grand Tetons themselves.

     How many fresh powder turns had he taken? How many deep, waist deep, chest deep, turns had he taken? How many endless, agonizing, thigh burning powder turns, until his life had become one long powder turn? The American Mountains didn’t hold much allure to him anymore. He thought he might try Europe next. There were no more frontiers.

     Tom thrived on the challenge of conquering nature. The chance of ultimate defeat, like jumping into Corbet’s Couloir. He had traded away security for the thrill of the moment his entire life. The greatest moments were the ones that no one else but he knew about, like the thrill of the high traverse across Alta, Utah. The heavy morning fog hanging low and the snow blowing freezing your eyelids shut. The smell of ozone in the air, the hair on your neck standing with static electricity and fear of lightning with nowhere to hide, your right leg clamped securely clutching the track, your breath coming in short gasps knowing full well that to catch your left tip in the crud would send you careening downhill into the rocks and certain death below. The urgent need to be off the top, traversing, endlessly traversing, toward Eagle’s Nest, desperately searching just barely able to make out the small wooden sign, “Expert’s Only! No Easy Out!” Traversing and waiting, waiting for the fog to burn off, and the heavy snow to dissipate, catching your breath at the first glimpse of the blue, blue skies and deep powder and steep, ever so steep sides of Little Cottonwood Canyon. 

     Staring out across the sharp jaggedness of the Grand Tetons, he took a deep fresh breath of mountain air. He was glad that he hadn’t traded away one moment of his youth spent on mountains. His nostrils flared as the breeze sent mounds of snow sloughing from the boughs, instinctively, he jerked his head upright at the hooting and hollering as his friends came crashing through the evergreens.

     Touloose, The Captain, and Fast Eddy, the Bucklemeister, skied up to the plateau.

     “Hey! Touloose, what took you so long?”

     “It was the Captain, Tom, ya know em he got too close to an evergreen and got sucked into a well.”

     “Got in pretty deep?”

     “Up to his ears, right up to his ears,” he cackled. He reached up and pulled his Sherpa hat from his head.

     “Aaayuh!, Aaayuh!, Aaayuh! Life’s a beautiful thing here in the mountains,” the Captain’s irrepressible smile greeted Tom. “Life’s a beautiful thing.”

     He pulled his glasses free from his face, reached in his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. He began wiping them dry. Walking up close to Tom, he stuck his face right up to Tom’s.

     “I can’t see ya without me eyes. Let me tell ya something sonny,” his voice lowered to a whisper. “It’s a reaaal funny thing about them snow snakes ya get a little too close to those pits and they reach up and grab the tips of your skis. They suck ya right down into the pit.” He grabbed Tom and wrestled him to the ground laughing and rolling in the snow.

     “Great Run!, Great Run!” Eddy said breathlessly.

     “Let’s start the fire.”

     They all walked out on the plateau and began picking up rocks, and driftwood.

     Tom bent down over his backpack and pulled out several pre-wrapped steaks, onions and potatoes.

     “Touloose, start the fire,” Tom said.

      He walked across the snow, his mountaineering boots leaving deep impressions in the snow. He bent down over his pack, reached in and extracted a small vial of clear liquid. Walking over to the fire pit, he unscrewed the top and poured it on the wood. Extracting a slim red metal container from the pocket of his bibs, he opened it.  Scratching the striker across the flint, he stepped back as the sparks hit the kindling. A small flame flickered on the damp wood. A wry smile spread across his face. A loud wumph, followed immediately by roaring flames drove him back from the circle of stones. The long fingers of flames, orange and glowing brightly reached up and snapped at the crisp Wyoming sky.

     “Works every time,” he smiled smugly, “a little aviation fuel out of the silver streak, my BMW motorcycle.”

     The men instinctively moved closer to the fire, pulling off their gloves and warming their hands over the flames. They all chuckled.

     “Did ya hear about Tuckerman’s Ravine last year Tom?” Eddie asked.

     “No, I didn’t, how was the headwall?”

     Eddie laughed.

     “Pure disaster,” he said.

     

     He reached over and placed a collapsible metal screen wrapped with foil over the fire and set the food on it to cook.

     “Bad trip in? Bad trip up? It’s been years since I’ve been to the ravine, but I still love it. It reminds me of Mt. Baldy at Alta, that is the steepness, I mean. People out West don’t think there’s any radical terrain in the East. Sometimes I think powder is for pussies, it takes a real man to ski Tuckerman’s covered in blue ice,” Tom expounded.

     Eddy adjusted his glasses and bent down close to the fire.

     “A little bit of both, a little bit of both.”

     He looked over at the Captain and he smiled sheepishly.

     “Well to start with,” he began, “ We were packing for the trip and we bought frozen dried foods, to keep our packs light. That is all of us cept the Captain, it seems that the Captain had to have large cans of stew, soup, and those little white potatoes.”

     “Jesus,” Tom said, “ How much did his pack weigh, that’s a very long hike in.”

     “It was heavy, believe me,” said the Captain, “damn heavy.”

     Tom burst out laughing.

     “Well anyway,” Eddie continued, “it seems we started into the Ravine, and we're hiking for a while, when the Captain here starts to sit down. He starts complaining like an old woman, moaning and complaining, just like an old woman, tossing out cans of stew, soup, and potatoes, huffing, puffing, and complaining about the cans that we would have to split and pack out! He complained all the way into the ravine about the weight of his pack.”

     “That true Captain, what he’s saying?”

     “It be true”

     “It’s just the beginning, Tom,” Eddy continued.

     “Once we got into the lean-to, we met some Canadian climber’s, and started partying with them. They had brought Ouzo and we got pretty smashed. I started feeling dizzy, so I went inside and slipped into my mummy bag and zipped it up tight. Started to doze off, when all of a sudden I got the chills and began getting sick.”

     He paused and reached up and turned the steaks, the fire crackling and sizzling with the dripping grease.

     “Anyway like I said, I started getting real sick, and I was pretty hammered. But my zipper was broken, I was clawing and scratching like hell, but damn if I could get that bag unzipped. Here I am, I got the chills, I’m plastered drunk on Ouzo, I’m zipped to my throat in my mummy bag, and I’m getting sicker and I can't get the bag unzipped. I’m like a cat trying to claw my way out of a sack.” 

     “What happened?”

     “Well nature took care of it, I just rolled down over and out of the lean-to, and puked my guts out!”

     They all burst into laughter.

     “Sounds like a real bad one. How was the skiing?”

     “Awesome Tom, Awesome, you know the wall.”

     “Foods ready,” Touloose yelled. “Hey, Tom.”

     “Yeah.”

     “Did the Captain tell ya how he came to be married?”

     “No, No,” Tom replied.

     “Look, don't start this,” the Captain said.

     “Yeah come on tell me, I want to hear this.”

     “Yeah tell us,” Eddie chimed in.

     “Well the other day out of the blue, the Captain says, Touloose , don't ever get married. So I ask him why? If you hate it so much, why did you do it?”

     “She made me do it,” he whined.

     They all sat down around the fire chuckling. They looked out across the piney rock ledges of the Tetons, across the fenced ranch lands, the silver sagebrush, to the blue, deep dark shimmering blue of Jackson Lake, under the marine blue of the pristine Wyoming sky with the Hogbacks darkening purple in the waning sun.  In the town of Jackson, the sun flashed and glinted off the windshield of an old pickup truck. The cold began to settle into the trees. The ivory crystals started hardening. Far up, very far up on the hill just above timberline, above the lichen encrusted rock ledges, just below the little red tram with Jackson Hole lettered in white on its side. The Ski Patrol began descending among the evergreens. The eerie silence was split momentarily by the solitary cry, “Laaaaaaaast Sweeeeeeeep!!! Laaaaaaaast Sweeeeeep!!!"

The Sounds of Silence, Simon and Garfunkel

Treatment

   I look into the steely eyes of the Oncologist as he is saying, " Usually the cancer follows down the nerve. So we are going to have to run the radiation down along the nerve. It will go deeper than normal. Which means that you will probably have burning and blistering in your throat as well as losing about 2 1/2 inches of hair around your ear, including your beard that may not grow back. You may get your salivary gland back on your right side after 4 or 5 months."

   I look closely at the Doctor and smile. Trying not to laugh as I am reminded of a co worker of mine from Albany New York when I was growing up. I sold gas at a gas station that was full service. My co worker was Bob Hornsby a crusty old middle aged man. His favorite saying was. "Ya Cock- Knocker Ya!" I want to say to the Doctor, "Ya Cock Knocker Ya!" It's funny what runs through your mind at very crucial times of your life. I was a goofy sheltered 16 year old when I met Bob Hornsby and was pumping gas when it was 33.9 cents a gallon. Women wore mini skirts and Bob taught me all about beaver shots when you were cleaning car windows and that some women knew exactly what was going on and liked it.

   I walk through the vault door of the radiation and lay down on the cold steel table covered with a blanket. I lay my head into the cradle while they snap the molded mask over my face and snap it in place, securing my head to the table so I can't move. They tape the bolis to the right side of my head. The table slides into place under the multi heads of the radiation machine. There is a green centering light that crosses the mask to give them true center. The table stops and the green light outlines my entire face like a computer image and disappears from the reflection of the main head. The machine clicks and whirs and all the attendants leave the room and close the vault door. The machine goes silent. They say you can't feel the radiation but every time the radiation starts I have a tingling sensation just below my right ear. I begin my mantra to pass the time. "Om Mani Padmi Hum. Om Mani Padmi Hum."

   "Wumpf, Wumpf, Wumpf," the sound of the rotors of the flight to life echo from the roof of St. Mary's Trauma Center. It is across the street of St. Mary's Pavillon where I get my treatment. It's strange because I instantly recognize the sound of the Flight to Life from my Ski Bumming days. I always watched the birds take off from the top of Snowbird Ski Area in Little Cottonwood Canyon of Utah. I knew that seriously injured skiers where transported to critical care hospitals in Salt Lake City. I never thought about the birds delivering the injured skiers to the hospitals. Maybe it was because I never ever thought about my mortality. We literally skied places where if you missed a turn you would fall and die. We never let that into our minds. No time for the fear!

   I have fear these day's. Will I be O.K. ? Will I be cured? Will this reoccur? "Om Mani Padmi Hum!" I bring my mind back to center as the table shakes and I know the session has ended. The attendants appear as the heads spin and whir above me and I am let out of my medical bondage.
I will return tomorrow as today marks half completion. Just as I know I will complete my writing projects, each and every one and find joy and satisfaction in the challenge,

   I head home to my loving family who welcomes me with open arms and love and it does not escape me that I am the luckiest man in America!

   Today's Songs

Can't Find My Way Home," Allison Krauss

"Why Worry," Dire Straits

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7no9Ak2uSrQ&sns=em

Relativity of Time

 

The phrase that time is relative has never escaped me. I always knew that as a young man that time was the here and now. The book for my generation that was the rage was "Be Here Now," by Ram Dass. It reverberated with the message of the times. You know all the Sha-la-la-la live for todayer's. I was one of them. You guessed it a hippie. Of course I had long hair and a beard. My little sister was kind enough to put my hair into tight braids, so that when I took them out it made my hair frizz out and it looked good with my big gold ring in my ear. Yep! That was me the cool cat, or at least I thought I was in my mind. After all, I watched Doby Gillis and thought Maynard G. Grebbs was cool. I may have even bought a set of bongo's. However I learned early in my life that I have no rhythm and I can't carry a tune. Except for my brief try at chorus in eighth grade. (My friend Michael Metti convinced me to try out. I actually made chorus, but my sisters laughed at me and I decided to quit. Just like my engagement to Mary Corona, when I was five years old. I bought her a ring, gave it to her because she was the absolute love of my life. Again my sister's made fun of me, so I remember asking her for the ring back. God Rest her soul as she has passed away.) The Hippie movement was right on time for my friends and I. The signs were all there and it was exciting. Looking back on the times I am still amazed and surprised about how unaware our parents and the police were concerning the times and the drug scene. I remember a hippie jeweler in town who had a small three bedroom house and he painted it the color of the rainbow, and put large bubble windows in place of the traditional ones. When you walked into the store he had completely covered the inside walls with broken pieces of mirrors in every room and had large display cases with all his wares. He burned incense and had black lights everywhere with brightly colored T-shirts for sale. Even I thought it was slightly bizarre for 1968. However, neither the police, nor our parents ever voiced any concern about the house, even though it was a major source of marijuana and hashish. Good times, where you could charge your purchases on your credit card and be styling. I suppose that it was a real sign of the times. Every one I am sure has many stories like that. People just didn't catch on or if they did they really did not care.


    Fortunately for me, I was the first year of the draft lottery for the Vietnam war. They were taking everyone with numbers 210 and lower. My number was 242. Free bird! I am sorry for all the young men who went to Vietnam, many did not come back or they did in body but not mind and spirit. It was my good fortune to go skiing and not to war. I remember thinking what a very lucky group of men my friends and I were. We all worked in our family business's or in local jobs and were free to take long ski vacations, In my case, and Captain Zooms, Touloose, and Creme-Kings we all were able to go and live in ski town's like Aspen, Vail, in Colorado, Brighton in Utah, Jackson Hole in Wyoming. It started out by skiing weekends, then week days, until we realized we could ski every day if we became bona-fide ski bum's. Every mother's night mare, a son or daughter with out a real career, drifting through life like the snows of winter. I remember my first winter at Arapahoe Basin, as beautiful as it was every one was talking about Grand Targhee, in Wyoming that was the first and last mountain to get snow. It was addicting, the freedom I mean. Get up every day and turn your boards until you were exhausted. Work where ever and when ever you could. It was a freedom that captured my heart and soul and I guess that is why I have always wanted to write about it. To explain why we all ran way, we were in a way a lost generation. I believe that I found myself in the running away. Subsequently each and every one of us did. I really want to follow the lives of the people I knew at Arapahoe Basin, and where they went and what they did with their lives after leaving.


   The mountain changed us all and touched us all in it's own way and we all found our individual truths that we were searching for. All in a winter's tale. We all moved on but we shared a special time in a special place with a group full of searchers. Sometimes I think I almost know what it is I want to say. These day's it is more pressing and wanting to come more as my time has been put into perspective. I always thought I had all the time in the world to write what I needed to write. Having been diagnosed with Cancer, (a non lethal form of skin cancer, that will require another unpleasant surgery, and six weeks of radiation therapy,) has put my time into perspective. Write, hell yeah, as often and as long as I am able. I suppose that when I look back at my life in my old age to come and Thank God! for the wake up call and the time that I was able to spend writing in my future life, I will say it was my singular greatest turning point and inspiration to pursue the dream I have always held so close to my heart. Time is relative! I'm sure that even Prince would love to have a little more time. No one ever thinks they are going to run out of it. Guess what? I have had my moment with time the past few weeks. My future is a little less certain. Time a little more relevant than it ever has been in my life. The future is mine to create..

   Thank you for your love and support Katarina.


   I would often listen to this first song when I was working out at the Athletic Club in Colonie and taking writing classes at Union College. It would help me to focus on my dreams of writing and forget the reality of living in a city. I remember how very unhappy I was in the city. I just couldn't get my act together there.

   The second song I would listen to with the artist Evelyn Wilson, we were kindred spirits in the city longing for new horizon's and distant frontiers. She liked Prince, I was not so enthusiastic. I hope she found her horizons. I found mine and a beautiful woman to share them with.

Today's Songs

"Never Surrender," Corey Heart

"Purple Rain," Prince

My little nurse and angel who has helped through my ordeal and I am sure will continue to lift my spirits through the coming battles! I can't forget her good friend "Boney".

Ski Colorado!

   So I am biased, I do believe that the order of ski adventure is rated, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and New Mexico. Many people would dispute my opinion but after thousands of hours and runs on the mountains of America I feel qualified to make that statement. I love them all each and every one, each and every state, each and every mountain, slopes and runs not to mention the quality of the high mountain snow. They all vary in size shape and technical difficulty. Unfortunately in Ski Area Management the designation of the difficulty of the runs vary tremendously. A Blue Run in Utah might be considered a Double Black Diamond in Colorado. They have the need to sell the experience to the consumer. I have learned to live with it. It is O.K. each and every mountain has their unique experience as well as the quality of snow. Some are groomed to perfection, the brush is removed on the sides of the trails and in places like Deer Valley in Utah and Beaver Creek in Colorado the tracks of the snow cats are sidestepped by the Ski Patrol so that the area is impeccable. No ridges left in the trails. It is all good. You learn to glean and appreciate each and every area for it's unique claim to fame.

   It brings me back to my reason for wanting you to Ski Colorado. This evening I was browsing through Facebook and I saw a post from someone who worked at the chain stores called The Ski Market. They were stores I grew up with in the East. The majority of my friends were managers or employees. They were a discount store for quality ski apparel and equipment. If you were a serious Ski Bum, you bought your gear there. Any way, they were posting to other former employees about a Ski Reunion in Aspen, Colorado, during the 2016 U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame Induction & Skiing History Week, April 5-10. Aspen is a good mountain and it would be great to see the former managers and ski friends from this great chain and to maybe make future contacts to research the History of Arapahoe Basin. It has become a former hobby turned serious pursuit for my upcoming retirement years. I personally haven't skied in over twenty years. Retiring my sticks for saddles and spurs in my married life. Colorado has been getting very good snow and if you have never turned a ski downhill here you need to.

   The coming full moon has reminded me of my youth and climbing in the back country on Loveland Pass to Ski the abandoned mine dumps by the light of the full moon. Wow! is all I can say and remember about it. A kid from the East climbing mountain sides and skiing the wilderness by the light of the moon. Talk about gut wrenching and heart pounding stuff, these days a brisk walk with our toy poodle is my heart pounding endeavor. Don't feel sorry for me, I had my turns when I was young and could climb and ski these places. I have no regrets. I look forward to the work. In my future, I have researching and completing my Historical Novel. My motto is Retyre 2018. Then full pursuit of my writing dreams. All good things come to those who plan and prepare.  Hope you enjoy the pics of A-Basin and of skiing on Monarch Pass. Love the Verticals. While I miss the thrill of skiing, I find just as much joy from a well written piece. I have a lot to write about and a long future, I pray, in which to pursue it.
A Song for Colorado
"Colorado," Flying Burrito Brothers

My buddy Piper with her good friends.