My Skiing Stories

Night and Day

Have you ever had an experience that was amazing the first time, but terrible the second time around? Or vice versa? What made it different the second time?

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The first time I went skiing was pretty amazing. My husband, then fiance, was an experienced and competent skiier. I was with a group from my college, and we were on an excursion to Buck Hill in Minneapolis. Terry had planned to meet us there, and he spent the afternoon teaching me the ins and outs of learning to ski. I had a great time, and did pretty well for a novice.

What was really fun was that most of the people I was with had no idea who Terry was, and just assumed that he was a ski instructor who worked for Buck Hill, and had taken a shine to me. I didn’t disillusion them until we were on our way home, when I displayed my engagement ring and told them who the “ski instructor” really was.

That was an amazing experience.

The next time I remember going skiing was after we were married and had our first baby. Terry was skiing with Mike strapped safely into a carrier on his back, and Mike seemed to be enjoying himself. His cheeks grew rosy as he laughed his way down the hills with his dad.

I had elected to stay on the bunny hill, still not sure of myself. I was wearing a long scarf wrapped securely around my neck, or so I thought. I was skiing down the hill, then going back up by way of the rope tow. What I wasn’t paying attention to was that my scarf had come unwound, and I didn’t realize it had become tangled with the rope line until I was already choking. As the pressure increased, I grew slightly frantic, waving my arms around and trying to get someone’s attention that I was in trouble.

Good thing for me that the rope tow operator kept his eyes open for just such emergencies, and he stopped the tow. Someone helped me get my scarf untangled, and the operator said, “New skiier, right? Experienced skiiers don’t wear long scarves around their necks. A person could suffocate that way.” I was thoroughly embarrassed. The heat from my blushing face probably melted a few inches of snow.

That was not such an amazing experience.

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