160; Uncle Albert's Mountain,(The Lure;) Chapter XXVII; Toby is Alive

       Tom winced in pain from the antiseptic smell of the Summit County Hospital. They had been waiting for an hour, an hour too long. He hated hospitals. They were absolutely necessary, but he stayed away from them as much as possible. Ever since he had been a young man, his first memories were of their lonely corridors. He despised that antiseptic smell, the terribly clean sterile smell. He had spent a week in the Albany Medical Center, being treated for Rheumatic Fever, and he never forgot those long poking and probing days and endless dreary, scary nights. All he wanted to do was go home, they wouldn’t let him so he wept. He was weeping now, but this time for his best friend, laying with tubes and casts protruding from his mangled body.

     Toby was lying with his eyes closed in the far bed by the window. There were ten beds in the room. Three others were filled with the main disease of ski towns: BROKEN BONES. Tom and Joe walked quietly up to the bed. Tobey opened his eyes and weakly smiled.

     “Hi guys,” he whispered.

     “Hey Tobe,” Tom sat on the edge of the bed, and took his hand. “I know this is a dumb question, but how do you feel?”

Joe walked around and sat on the other side, watching the two men talk.

     “I’m lucky they tell me, tho, I don’t feel that lucky right now.”

     “We’re all just happy you’re alive,” Tom tightened his grip on Toby’s hand. He looked down at his helpless friend, wishing there was something he could do to ease the pain.

     “What happened anyway?”

     “Lance, he blew number three, to get back at me for selling out. They're taking him to Denver, for Psych evaluation, and then probably jail. I should have seen it all coming. I saw the signs, the short answers, the quick temper. He had that look in his eyes. The same distant look you get when you’re gazing across a ridge after a battle wondering where the future lies. I’m just sorry you were hurt, you get some sleep now son. We’ll be back tomorrow.”

     “I’m gonna go for a walk, Joe. You go on.”

     “Are you sure/”

     “Yeah.”

     “He’ll be O.K.”

     “I know, I’ll see you back at the Basin.”

     Tom started walking as Joe pulled out of the parking lot, His eyes were teary and blurred as he tried to focus on the pavement, he kicked maliciously at the chunks of snow lining the pavement. One hell of a way to wind up a season, he thought. He stuffed his hands into his denim pockets, as he made his way through the familiar town of Dillon. Something inside of him was dead, it had died with the news of the sale of his dream mountain, and he didn’t know if he would ever really feel alive again. He took no notice of, what he thought of as, a ghost town, around him.

     He began to run. A slow jog at first, and then faster and faster until perspiration started to soaked his skin. His legs began to ache as he passed the Moose Jaw, the Corinthian Hills, Keystone Village and headed up, the pass, toward the Basin. When the grade began to rise, he felt like death was only ten steps away. He kept running, and running until the grade steepened sharply. He fell into a snowbank on the side of the road, gripping his stomach, as he laid back and closed his eyes. A few minutes had passed, and the worst was over. He opened his eyes and stared up at the cloud- covered sky. An angry front was steadily making its way up the valley and looked like it would strangle the mountain. It was blocking the sun from the highest peaks. His breathing slowed down and returned to normal, he took one last deep breath. The tears came, he let them gladly flow, to cleanse his system of the pain and disappointment he had held for so long.

Over The Hills And Far Away, Led Zeppelin

I always wished for time to write when I was working on the ranch. 

Be Careful What You Wish For!

I am being advised not to leave my house, no excuses not to write.

 Thank You Lord for keeping me safe from the rain and hurricanes, and teaching me what hell would be like, if I wasn't a good man.

159; Uncle Albert's Mountain,(The Lure;) Chapter XXVI; March-Tom's Return

     

     It had been several weeks since Tom had left the Basin. Toby was on the mountain skiing the headwall. It was a black diamond trail with a steep pitch that left absolutely no room for any error. He was feeling a winning attitude in his heart for his sport. The thrill of the speed, the rush of the wind, the glimmer and sparkle of the ivory crystals in his eyes, he was warmed by the intensity of the sun at twelve thousand feet in elevation. He felt at one with himself and the world around him. It was this inner piece that kept him coming back to the mountain year after year. Not knowing why, he simply felt good, it was great to let go and float through the endless ecstasy of powder.

     Rushing down the steep grade of the cornice above the headwall, he knew Coach and Tom were right. There was something magical, primal about the mountain, it was a humbling mentor and lover. The serenity and silence disturbed only by the deafening roar of unstable powder in the backcountry. He hit the bottom of the transition, compressed and shot up the steep slope that would drop him over into the front-side. Skirting the evergreens alongside the trails he could catch Grizzly Road to International and the Lodge.

     Heading down International out of the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of  sunlight down in the parking lot. He was several hundred yards above it and could see people milling about. From the direction of the flash, he noticed the unmistakeable and familiar black cowboy hat bobbing up and down from the far left of the parking lot toward the lodge. It was Tom's silver dollar centerpiece.

     Toby started through the pines that dotted the lower slope. Gathering momentum he would shoot through the trees and come up on the lower end of the lot. The trail would lead Toby to the lower moguls and the number three lift station. Approaching the station, he looked up to see Lance, far off to the right, standing waving his arms in the air. He was motioning Toby to go back. Toby stopped abruptly, next to the number three station.

     “Go Back! Go Back!” was the last thing Toby heard before the explosion and the enveloping blackness.

     Lance was the first to reach him, followed by Tom and a few seconds later, Joe.

     “Don’t be dead! Don’t be dead! Please! Please! Please! Don’t be Dead,” he sat cradling Toby’s blood stained head and torso. Toby’s legs were sticking out from his body at odd angles. A bone protruded from the calf of his right leg. His left arm was pinned grotesquely behind his upper torso. Lance rested his head against Toby’s, his body convulsed with sobs. Toby’s skis were scattered twenty feet away along with debris from the building that once was the number three lift station. Smoke was rising as pieces of burning wood melted the snow where it had fallen.

     “Get Away!” Joe commanded, throwing Lance to the side. He had come running to join Tom at the sound of the explosion.

     “He’s barely breathing. Call an ambulance! Joe straddled Toby and began performing CPR. “Toby, Hold On! Come On Son! Just Hold On! Joe looked at Toby, and then back at Lance.

     “What the hell is going on here Lance?”

Tom dropped his pack and lunged at Lance grabbing him by his jacket.

     “You did this? Didn’t Ya! Didn’t Ya Lance?” He screamed at him, hitting him, over and over. Lance staggered backwards and made no attempt to defend him-self.

Several onlookers grabbed Tom and pulled him away. Lance stood there just staring at Toby. Tom broke free from his restraint and confronted Lance again.

     “You did this! You did this! How could you?”

     “No!” Lance held his jaw.

     “What?” Tom cried.

     “Joe did this! He sold out to the Senator” Lance was backing up, pointing and shaking his finger, hysterically at Joe. “It’s all your fault you sold out to the multi-nationals, you sold out the country!” Lance was raving, and crying wildly as the ambulance pulled into the parking lot.

     “Jesus! What happened here?” The attendant asked the crowd.

     No one answered as the medics took over CPR and Toby’s vitals. The mountain silence was deafening as they worked to get him on the backboard and load him on the stretcher and start for the Unimog.

     “Is he going to be alright? Will he live? Tom questioned.

Joe and Tom both watched as the medics worked on Toby frantically. Tom looked into Joe’s eyes as the door was closing and they could see the medic shake his head back and forth.

   The crowd stood back to allow the Summit County Sheriff’s Patrol access to the scene.

     “It’s Lance, Burt, over there, it was him” Joe pointed.

Lance stood looking at the ground as Burt walked over and pulled his arms behind him and began reading him his rights.

     Tom stood motionless, and in deep shock. “This is insanity. What is the mountain and the Senator doing to all of us? They have us at each other’s throats. Violence is never the answer. It’s killing us. It doesn’t have to be this way. It doesn’t have to happen. If I hadn’t left, none of this would have happened. What have I done?”

     Joe reached over and put his arm around Tom. Everything they both believed in was driving away in the ambulance. Life, their lives as they knew them, would never be the same, when the Basin, like Toby was gone. They would have many loves in their lives and many losses, none would ever rival the great love and immeasurable loss they would know for this Majestic Basin.

From The Beginning; Greg Lake

Ski Season Off Season (The Mud Season Blues)

   No longer  living in a Ski Area, I already have the Mud Season Blues. What is the off Season? What is the Mud Season? If you have never lived near or at a Ski Area. Most Ski Areas in the West close by April 15. Sometimes if they have a lot of snow they will extend there use permit with the Forest Service, (most ski areas in Colorado are on U.S. Forest Service Properties, National Forests.) They will extend their insurance and therefore extend the ski season. Most areas do not extend the season unless conditions are incredible. What does all of this have to do with off season. Areas close by April 15, they do not reopen for the late spring or summer season until May15 or sometimes into June. You have no work. The mountains are muddy with melting snow and no one, no one is around everything is closed.


   I have had some of the greatest off season vacations ever. You save your money all season, if you are a waiter, or a ski tech, or ski employee and you take a vacation for a month. I have travelled America and Canada by rail. Gone to the Ocean in California, Baja, and Cancun for a month, joked about how not many girls are ski bums, although I have had some great girl ski companions it is rare.
So when we went to the sea it was in search of sun, sand, skin, and sisters. I have a short story that I use  that line in Titled (The Rolling Reverend.) It is actually a very good story. Perhaps my best yet, I think it is probably the most commercially sellable story any way. The reason is the humor and the topic. I became stuck in it when the reverend attempts to give his version of the Sermon on the Mound. Anyway there are three to four more ski stories I need to button up for my collection.


   Back to the off season blues, the most memorable off seasons I have spent are in the ski areas that I did not leave. Everyone is gone the towns are empty and a few local pubs and stores stay open. The real hard cores stay. You take your skis and walk up and ski the soft vanilla cream melting snows and then come down through the muck and mud and running streams of mountain water and have lunch with your local friends. Just too much fun and excitement, too much adrenaline. Dodging rocks and large areas of gravel and green growing grass.


   Vail was my most favorite. Late at night walking around the village and up the trails to the restaurants and bars from lower to upper Bridge Street. You could hear all the Mountain Streams breaking the silence in the dark running downhill. The Mountain was alive and thriving in the growth of new life. Aah! the off season, thinking about it now, don't think there was anything blue about it at all. These days I don't have off seasons, I did when I lived and worked in Aspen, recently. However even those days have ended. Perhaps I will again in the future when I move to Oregon. Maybe I'll experience and Ocean off season. I almost had the perfect off season set up. Living in Vail in the winter and Charleston, South Carolina in  the summer. Someday I will tell the story of the Former Georgia State Trooper who stole $50,000 dollars from our packing and shipping companies Western Union and dashed our dreams of opening packaging and shipping stores in the Mountains and the Ocean, every year. Not Today Berta! Truly and Off Season Blues Story.


   I have had somewhat of an Epiphany regarding the research for my Historical Novel. For almost all the time I have researched and thought about the work I have fixated on Arapahoe Basin. I know the principles and have spoken to them about the work. I have completely excluded half of the equation. The half I have neglected is the mountain of Keytone, which eventually bought Arapahoe Basin. I know it was started by Max and Edna Dercum and Earl Eaton. Max wrote a book. Titled, It's all Down Hill from Here, Edna. The thing about it is I don't know who the principles were in 1978-79. I have aways believed it was Ralston Purina owned by Senator Dansforth. I could be total off base because I have neglected to do my  research. It not only opens up a whole new chapter of the work. It may hold the key to the truth of the event that I have been seeking. The truth is I didn't pursue the Senator in my research I omitted what is most likely the most important piece of truth and fact. What was Keystones motivation to own Arapahoe Basin? The Mountain at the time was probably the second largest ski area in the world. Second only to Vail. It was almost seven miles long in frontage on the highway with terrain in the mountains. The History of both of these areas is so new that the truth is there isn't that much. Excepting the interviewing of the principals involved. I suppose it is public record who owned what and the time frame they owned it in. I do know that after Keystone purchased Arapahoe Basin and Copper Mountain, they were forced to sell off Arapahoe Basin in an anti-trust lawsuit. What was that about and what brought that on?


   I have just recently ventured on to the Campus of Mesa University. It shouldn't be too hard to take a trip to their Library and see what information and documents are available. The Summit County Historical Society and Mary Ellen Gilliland are also excellent sources of information. I was also told to attend the Legends of Skiing Dinner in the Fall and that there are key individuals to interview regarding the history. I look forward to the day that I become financially independent enough to pursue this full time or that I get my writing act together enough to get a contract to do it. In the meantime it still is an enjoyable hobby and pursuit. I am at the stage with it to want to pursue it on a more aggressive level. Time does indeed take care of things. I hope it is on my side. I don't know how long or how old the key principles are. Will they still be alive to be interviewed.?

   Off season no such thing in the city, just people going to work and living there lives. They don't know of skiing rocky terrain or even owning a pair of mud skis so you don't wreck your good skis. It seems that they know of the blues, just a different kind of them.

   Today we need to celebrate Spring. I decided on two songs for the occasion. The first is what it feels like to me to be in a city. The second is the Best High Lonesome Loser Cowboy Song that I have ever heard.
"The Weight" The Band
"Cheyenne" George Strait

Happy Easter, hope spring brings joy and happiness into your daily life and world!