11 – Wanderings

Boston has a lot of statues.  Really, a lot.  Maybe it’s because this is such an old city.  I like to think the reason Boston has so many statues is because ‘back in the day’ this city thought it was a pretty happening place, and public officials or big cheese families commissioned public art as a way to make other folks believe Boston was a happening place.

Happening enough for CNN to park at Faneuil Hall for Election Day, 2012
(alas, none of the crew was from Atlanta) 

The attitude of commissioning public art persists; I’ve found some relatively recent examples of street-side sculpture, and I can assure you Bostonians still think this a pretty happening place.  Truth be told, I’m beginning to see some reason in their attitude.  It IS a pretty happening place.
  

All of the following statues are located within a 2-minute walk of Faneuil Hall, and most were photographed during one hour-long lunch break.

A few political movers and shakers …

James Curley as a young man in a waist coat,

Mayor, circa 1900 

James Curley, much older, as a Congressman

after 50 years of public service

   

Kevin White, Mayor, 1968 - 1984,
striding down North Street leaving footprints

Of course, some art is commissioned for people who have captured the public's imagination at some moment in time.  Politicians and athletes are good examples, and Boston so loves its athletes -- ask anyone here about the Red Sox, the Bruins, or the Patriots.



Bill Rodgers' marathon shoes, Larry Bird's Converse sneakers, and Red Auerbach with a stogie
(love the basketball under the bench)

Some art is statues of people, some art is just ART and doesn't pretend to look like anything in real life.  The following two examples are on top of the Big Dig; the North Market building in the background is where I work.

Kids love running around this circuitous flat sculpture, located atop the Big Dig

In memory of the Armenian Genocide in 1915 ... and other  genocide victims

[So, this Big Dig thing happened in Boston for about ten years, starting back in the mid 1990s.  They had this elevated highway, see, running smack through town.  Looked a lot like elevated roadways in the Bronx, or the El in Chicago: big, rusting steel structure that blotted out the sun and restricted travel from one side to the other.  It was a big physical barrier between downtown and the North End, one of Boston's oldest neighborhoods -- Paul Revere's house, Old North church, Mike's Pastry Shop, and a proud history of Italian immigration.  Still heavily Italian, the Big Dig injected new life into the North End, set as it is between the waterfront and Boston's business district.]
 

The Dig dismantled Interstate 93 and buried it in what is formally known as the Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill Tunnel, and less formally as the Central Artery.  (pronounced SIN-trall AH-tuh-ree.)  It took forever to complete and cost more money than dragging the moon into the Pacific Ocean, but it resurrected downtown Boston.

 

A long thin park now extends across the Boston peninsula: the surface of the Big Dig's tunnel, which is also the central median in the John F. Kennedy Surface Road.  (Imaginative name, eh?)  By the way, the Big Dig also includes three major I-93 interchanges and two connections to separate tunnels under Boston Harbor, so it really was a Big Dig.  And I guess it still is a Big Dig.

As a newbie, I can't say how much of a difference the Big Dig made -- I wasn't here "before".  What I can say is that the JFK Surface Road is a very cool urban space.  The park/median is a half-block wide, so it’s more than a simple median.  Public art, benches, grass, trees, flowers, and decorative sidewalks fill the spaces with a National Park visitor’s center, a carousel, a gigantic public plaza, and one of the three interchange entrance/exit ramps (hey, there’s a multi-lane freeway down there!) along its mile-and-a-half run.  I’ve actually hustled from the office all the way to Chinatown and back over a lunch break.

There’s a marker to the engineering and construction workers who worked on the project, and there’s sculpture on the original entrance for the Callahan Tunnel going to Logan.  (The Ted Williams tunnel brings you back.  Going over is free; coming back costs $3.50.)  The concrete retaining walls show how deep the Tip O’Neil is below present-day ground level.

Lieutenant Callahan was killed in Italy (1945)
while commanding the 10th Mountain Division

A time capsule rests under the Big Dig marker

Charge!

Yeah, Boston is really old.  Like most cities, though, it has to evolve and grow.  At left is a ChargePoint station for refueling your electric vehicle.  There are three of them here, at the edge of “Government Center” – another giant open public plaza.  This one has City Hall on the north side and Federal Buildings on the west side.  Two 40-story office buildings and a T station complete the picture, although there’s a wide vacated-street-turned-pedestrian-mall between the office buildings that shelters a lively lunch crowd in the half-block between the 1960s-era Government Center and the Old State House, built in 1713.

The Old State House is so old ("How old is it?") that it was used by the King’s Royal Governor, and then, ironically, by the first meetings of the Massachusetts state government -- which was created after dumping tea, shooting muskets, killing a bunch of people, and kicking the King’s Royal Governor out of the Old State House and our brand new country.

 

(In an early example of mixed-use development, the Old State House had a public merchant’s exchange on the first floor, with government activities upstairs.  It is now a major T station,  and an historic site complete with gift shop.)
 

Boston is a strange mixture of the very old, the middling old, the almost new, and the very new.  It's got a strong tradition of speaking its mind -- again, ask anyone here about the Red Sox -- and placing a high value on the individual, the community, education, and doing the right thing.

 

As an interesting note, there are seven Massachusetts counties where County governments were voted out of existence by their residents in the late 1990s and early 2000s.  All public services were either being performed by the local cities or by the state, so the voters decided to eliminate one layer of government.

Revolutionary idea, isn't it?  

==============================================================================

While the plazas on the Surface Road have art, history, grass, flowers, and activities, Government Center seems to mostly have a chill, strong wind.
 

That wind has turned from chill to dagger-like cold since September.  It’s supposed to snow (again) on Sunday.  I hope it does, to fill up those ski resorts I’m dreaming about – but also because Boston’s “wintry mix” of rain, sleet, and snow is downright miserable.

10 – Sandy Comes to Visit

[Ed:  Tropical Storm Sandy hit New England after sunset, Monday, October 29, 2012.]

Hurricane Sandy is scheduled to come ashore early this evening.

The storm has me worried a little, but only a little.  My family lived through a fair number of hurricanes and tropical storms during our 18 years in Tampa.  You prepare, stay alert, and wait it out.  There’s really nothing else you can do, except evacuate.  If the power goes out, you open your fridge and freezer as little as possible, and eat the contents on a first-to-spoil priority.

A little pre-game activity, occurring down the block

We never had to evacuate our Tampa home, and I hope I will have the courage to make the correct decision when a hurricane's approach finally does force me to leave.

Yesterday, I grabbed emergency provisions: a 5-pound bag of potatoes and a couple of jugs of cranberry-pomegranate juice. Potatoes for sustenance and cranberry juice for ... flavor. Storms take hours to pass and there’s nothing much to do during that time, so I put on music, open a book, and sip on gin and juice – and this time, it's cranberry-pomegranate juice to honor my new cranberry-growing home state!

This apartment is 100% electric, so I found my backpacking stove, fuel, and some candles scented with  lovely "white linen."  Flashlights are always at hand in my household, since Pallas Athena requires a daily walk well after sunset.  Music is courtesy of my iPhone and its docking station, and will function even without NStar, our local electric utility.  The ice cube bin is full.

Let's go down the checklist: Food, candles, flashlights, music, ice, cranberry, and gin.  Yep, I’m prepared.

The backyard of my next-doot neighbor.  Sandy is still 6 hours away.

The water supply may or may not work if the electricity fails.  Depends on the building’s water tank: how big and how high it is.  Pumps won’t work without power, and pumps are the normal source of water pressure.  But if a building's water storage tank is large, filled, and very high, it will provide good pressure until it's drained.  Like most modern buildings, ours is on the roof, so we should have water for a few hours even without power.  City water towers perform a similar function for their neighborhoods.

Water would be nice for boiling my potatoes tonight, but it's not essential; I can fry them in butter – and butter will not spoil over a couple of days if my refrigerator becomes powerless.  Paprika, salt, pepper, and Tony Chachere's Cajun spice will keep away the blandness of plain potatoes.  By Tuesday dinner, however, those butter-fried potatoes might become "Funky Sandy Home Fries.”

=======================================================================

As it turned out, Sandy was no big deal.  There was a lot of racket on the roof (I’m on the highest floor) which made me consider what actions I should take if something attached to the roof blew off and ripped open my ceiling.  Gin and cranberry juice are both excellent sources of inspiration when planning ways to survive a natural disaster.

=======================================================================

Sandy did have an effect on my work, however.

We have a project to collect real-time travel information and display it on 22 signs spread along 75 miles of I-93 north and south of the city.  Through a geek-tastic web of 2 cellular telephone networks and the internet, traffic information is collected by sensors along the highway in Boston, processed in Phoenix, sent to Quebec, back to Boston, and displayed on construction-style portable signs -- the same signs that hold up the sensors that collected the data a few seconds earlier.

On Sunday, we lowered all of our signs, as requested by MassDOT.  It took eight hours, because there are so many of them and they're spread over a long way – the round-trip distance alone is 150 miles.   Superstorm Sandy blew in Monday evening, was rude and inconsiderate to everyone in her path, and quickly departed before sunrise Tuesday.  On Wednesday, my guys and I spent another full day on the side of the road, raising the signs and re-starting everything.

One of our signs – Zero-A; what an imaginative name! – is on top of the I-93 viaduct just north of the Zakim Bridge.  (It's located on a highway oddity: the left-hand exit lanes for an off-ramp that never got built.)   Since the viaduct is about 80 feet above the ground – seriously – this sign is subject to strong winds every day.  When Sandy came through, wind gusts increased to the point where the sign actually blew over: it weighs 1,500 pounds and sits on an integral trailer 8 feet wide.

Zero-A is down!

Ouch!

Immediate inspection showed no significant damage, other than four car batteries scattered across the tarmac (they're neatly lined up against the barrier wall in the above photo), and a significantly bent sign panel with broken hinges.  We'll have to turn it on and connect it to the cell networks to fully determine the extent of Sandy damage, though.

Took a few days to schedule a crane truck to come pick it up.  The five-minute effort to set it upright the following Saturday was a little dramatic with the 1,500-pound sign flipping up under only a semblance of control, and bouncing on its tires a few times before settling to rest..  A Suffolk County deputy sheriff with flashing blue lights, the crane truck with yellow flashers and an arrow board, and my black Outback with lots of very helpful window decals – a short parade that took hours to organize, 30 minutes to assemble, and lasted 5 minutes to complete the work.  

Glad to have the cop, though; one jellybrain decided he could still drive in the leftmost lane, despite the police cruiser there with his blue lights flashing.  Even though he was 50 feet away with lots of highway noise and strong winds, we could clearly hear the cop yelling at the jellybrain.

Up she comes!  Jeff in the background watches closely; Derek, at the right, operates the crane by remote control. 

Righting the sign was a great experience; enhanced by the bitterly cold morning, grey skies and a stiff wind, being six stories above the ground, and listening to guys who spoke English with a heavy Boston accent.

Afterwards, my guys and I did a bunch of careful poking around inside the sign panel, inside the battery compartments, and inside the enclosure for the electronic controller, applied a little off-the-cuff engineering, and – viola! – the sign is up and running again.

9 – Around the Neighborhood

My apartment is in a neighborhood that reflects a Boston heritage: three-story frame houses divided into multiple apartments.  In Boston lingo, they’re called “triple deckahs,” and they often fill backgrounds in Boston movies.  There are brick brownstone style triple deckahs, too, although I’ll bet they were purpose-built as apartments. 

  

Triple Deckah

Pretty Doors

Brickah Triple Deckah:  Love the circular towered corners

There are conventional apartment types around, too; blocks from the 60’s (or maybe 50’s), and the modern Mezzo.

Balconies with winter sunshine!

Architecture inspired by ... I dunno, East Berlin?

La Mezzo Moderne ... architecture inspired by Gaudi?

I imagine real estate agents call this a working-class neighborhood.  It’s an appropriate label, I suppose.  There's so little traffic on the streets, I’m comfortable walking Miss Pallas around without a lead.  I think the low traffic stems from two reasons: transit is very accessible, and virtually every street in this part of Charlestown and Somerville is one-way, so there's nobody driving through.

My T stop is Sullivan Station, on the Orange Line. I’ve already described the I-93 viaduct, rusting away above the rail line, waiting to fall and crush the subway cars like a string of empty beer cans.  By the way, T commuter trains run on an adjacent track, with trains running to Lowell, Haverhill (HAV-er-ull), and Newburyport, all within five miles of the New Hampshire state line.

Sullivan Station: Your chariot awaits!  That is, until the rusting overhead viaduct collapses.

A rusty column from I-93's viaduct penetrates the platform roof.
(That's the LOWER viaduct level; the upper level is another 25 feet higher.)

The Tavern at the End of the World and Puritan Garage are also very close.

Haven't been yet.  Waiting on a celebratory event -- or the impending End of the World.
Note the Chimay sign; there's a Duvel neon sign in the window, so beer selection is promising!

Puritan Garage: The mechanics trace their lineage to the Mayflower.

Bunker Hill is across the way, and is quite steep.  I feel for the poor guys that ran up that hill with flintlock shot coming at them.  It's so steep that Pallas and I almost bailed on our first summit attempt, since it came at the end of our lengthy Freedom Trail hike.  Ancient homes with good views, and no yards.  None of the old homes have yards, and I wonder why.  Guess the colonials didn’t like cutting grass.

Steep Bunker Hill street; compare the various ground floors.  The Zakim Bridge is in the background.

Another thing that’s pretty hip in my ‘hood are these pocket parks.  They’re spaces no bigger than one or two house lots that have playground equipment for little kids.  The coolest thing is, there’s one within three blocks no matter where you are.

None of this cool stuff was around during my deprived childhood in Due West.

There's a bit more to the neighborhood; it is so densely packed, there is almost no available space for off-street parking.  On-street parking is only allowed with a city permit window decal, except on the first and third Thursday of the month from 5 am to 8 am when the street sweeper rolls through. ("Good morning, Taylor!  Welcome to Boston.")

That's the news from Charlestown.  We spell it with a w.

8 – Passion or Obsession?

Object of Lust
You cannot deny its power over mortal men!

  

I want a motorcycle.  I want a Yamaha FJR.  I want a 2013 Yamaha FJR.  I want a 2013 Yamaha FJR even though they only come in a blasé gold/silver color called Stone Grey.

Is this a passion or an obsession?  Is there a difference?  Does it matter?

A favorite theory says we are the same person throughout life, with only minor changes to accommodate the changing landscape of our immediate environment.  Our personalities are formed and finished by late-teens, and we retain those personalities forever.  Behaviors change to accommodate a spouse or children or jobs or other major life changes, but the basic personality remains inside.  This theory provides an explanation for a man’s mid-life crisis or a usually calm neighbor going on a walk through the nearby college campus shooting at everyone he sees.

Why shouldn’t I lust after a motorcycle – and not just a motorcycle, but a Yamaha FJR?  Thirty years ago, I was struck with the same fever to buy a motorcycle.  It sprang from several motivations, of which these were the most obvious:

1.  Being stationed at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the year-round climate is great for riding motorcycles,

2.  At my prior duty station, I was one of the few car owners, and therefore often tapped for taxicab service, which motorcycle ownership would seriously quash,

3. I was a twenty-something male and hopelessly attracted to speed, horsepower, jolts of adrenaline, hot girls, and all the other natural accompaniments to motorcycles, and

4.  The Navy would not ship my car from Charleston to Honolulu.

What might not be obvious are the traits I currently share with the young man of so many years ago:

1.  Warm climates are not ideal for riding when one decides to wear appropriate protective clothing and armor, so the New England climate is better for riding motorcycles,

2. My days of carrying passengers is over, so why not adopt a vehicle more suited to single-passenger transport,

3.  I am a fifty-something male and hopelessly attracted to speed, horsepower, jolts of adrenaline, hot women, and all the other natural accompaniments to motorcycles,

4.  I am lucky to have enough income that allows me to indulge in a motorcycle purchase, and

5. (jumping on the environmental bandwagon... ) Motorcycles get well over 40 miles per gallon and produce virtually no greenhouse gases.

Fun by the bucketload

Substitute yourself and a hottie of your choice into the photo on the left, which shows a happy couple clearly headed for fun and adventure, and tell me you don’t also want one – and not just any motorcycle, but a Yamaha FJR?

Years ago, the twenty-something me walked into a Yamaha dealer on Kamehameha Highway just outside the front gate to the Pearl Harbor submarine base, and purchased an RD 400.  It was a glorious machine: a silver creature with Yamaha-blue accents, shaped like a café racer with a flat seat and low, swept-back handlebars.  It had a two-stroke, 400 cc engine that was taken directly from Yamaha’s racing program (no kidding) and placed into a frame and suspension package that was better suited for riding around town. 

[Ed:  Two-stroke engines produce power with 2 strokes of the piston, and differ greatly from the typical four-stroke engines common in automobiles and lawn mowers.  Two-stroke engines produce very rapid throttle response, but low torque.  In other words, they are terrible engines for heavy vehicles that require torque to get started from a full stop, but they are gas-powered rocket engines on lightweight vehicles like Yamaha RD 400 motorcycles.  The only modern uses for two-stroke engines are chainsaws and some leaf blowers; they’re easily identified by the sharp whine of the engine and the oil fumes contained in the exhaust.]

Details of that afternoon are forgotten, other than the salesman wanted me to buy it on a payment plan to help establish a credit history.  (I did; made the down payment that afternoon, and paid off the entire loan one month later when I got the first bill.  Probably didn’t help with the credit rating at all.)

Yamaha RD 400: Forgive the labels; this is the only photo I could find

Oh yeah, I remember a few other details.  Like how I had never even sat on a motorcycle before that day, and yet the salesman sold me a seriously dangerous crotch rocket and let me ride it out the door thirty minutes later.  And how I inadvertently popped a wheelie every time the traffic light turned green – even though it was scaring me silly and I couldn’t figure out how to avoid it.

It took a few dozen miles before I learned how to handle my new ride; you know, “treat her like a woman,” and all that stuff?  BZZZZZZT – WRONG!  You had to treat this bike like she was Satan’s pet serpent.  Constantly aware of throttle position, lean angle, pavement condition, surrounding traffic and the psycho drivers therein, weather, and pesky traffic lights that always turned yellow just when it seemed you couldn’t stop in time.  Focus, focus, focus, or you’d find yourself in trouble instantly.

But Satan’s serpent and I managed to find a balance that suited us both.  I was definitely in charge when we were on base – the Navy doesn’t brook recklessness, especially on motorbikes – and I relinquished a bit of control when we hit city streets.  But it was on the embryonic Hawaii interstate system, or on flat, straight roads through miles of pineapple fields, that she seduced me into releasing all control.  I have never been able to resist a seductress.

We would fly down the highway.  Since the bike weighed nothing and I weighed nothing back then, it was almost literally flying.  The light would turn green, my right wrist would flick back, that marvelous fruit of Japanese engineering (or the heart of Satan’s serpent, depending on your perspective) would scream with the fresh supply of gasoline, the front tire would lift off the ground, and the tachometer would spike to the right.  Before I could catch my breath or shift to third gear, we’d be traveling at twice the speed limit.  If the seductress was in charge, the front tire would rise  with every gear shift – every gear shift – up to and including sixth.

I learned to ride with my feet located far to the rear, resting on the passenger footpegs.  This allowed me to get much closer to prone, almost lying down on the long seat, with my chest pressed against the cold steel gas tank.  In this position, the slightest movement of my helmet would cause the bike to lean and turn.  After looking at motorcycle racing photos, I learned to extend my knee out and away from the bike like a sail, which would augment the helmet-tilt when making turns in the depths of Honolulu’s urban jungle or on the curvy switchbacks of Tantalus Drive.

I am astonished, sometimes, that I am still alive.

All that changed when I met a flesh-and-blood seductress.  She was the perfect biker boy accessory: long silky hair, firm arms around my chest as we rode, and tanned thighs that flashed in the sun like gold.  She was even comfortable with the title “Biker Mama,” but absolutely unhappy with the RD’s tendency (and mine) to lift the front tire.

Yamaha XS 750 Special:  Unquestionably Sophisticated 

Satan’s serpent was replaced with a used, dark blue Yamaha XS 750 Special. This bike had a bigger engine: a four-stroke, with three in-line cylinders.  The larger size and four-stroke power made it much more sedate, predictable, and controllable.  I added a sissy bar so the Biker Mama would feel more secure – something I’ll never do again since the firm arms around my chest immediately disappeared.

Its bigger engine and upright seating positions started a new, calmer era in my bike riding history.  But that extra power gave the 750 its own sly seduction.  

Within a few months, I detected rust holes in the mufflers and replaced the exhaust system.  On went a black, powder-finish Kerker performance header and pipe.  The Kerker made the exhaust note almost silent, but made throttle response so much more tempting.  My 750 never was Satan’s serpent, or any of Satan’s pets for that matter, but she could boogie down the highway when I asked her to, blasting through the Honolulu nights like a comet.  We rode regularly, all over Oahu, and she never failed me.

During four years in Hawaii, motorcycles were my only transportation.  When I learned I would be a father, I sold the 750 (OK, a month after I learned), bought a diesel Rabbit, and moved back to the mainland.

Last year I bought my next motorcycle -- after a 28 year hiatus.  Another Yamaha, because Yamaha knows how to build bikes.  I wanted a sport bike, the term now used instead of crotch rocket; a bike I thought would resurrect the memory of Satan’s serpent.  Let’s just say the spirit was willing but the body was not.  After thirty seconds of sitting on the sport bike, I realized my shoulders, wrists, and back were far to old to adapt the prone riding position of 30 years ago.

I quickly dismounted – “Wow, it’s been a really long time since I rode” – and looked through the inventory for something more like the 750.  Found a Yamaha VStar 950 with saddlebags, a windscreen, and an upright sitting position.  Stereotypical black, but the only other choice was red, and I’ll not own a red bike.

Rode it for about 10 months before circumstances required it be sold.  She had 7,000 miles on her when I turned her in, a product of gradually regaining confidence and re-learning rider skills.  I rode almost exclusively alone, and ranged all across Georgia with one brief excursion into Tennessee for a RTE (Ride To Eat) at a microbrewery in downtown Chattanooga.  

  

Mr. Cool and bike at the Georgia Nuclear Aircraft Laboratory

The Poppy Lady -- you know, "In Flanders Field ..." -- is from Georgia



Mr. Cool at the Georgia Guidestones

I am the President, Sergeant-At-Arms, Ride Captain, and only member of the Barrel O Monkeys Motorcycle Club, with our mother chapter in Dunwoody. I will start a new chapter in Boston when spring returns, bringing a new season of riding weather, and I can justify buying a new motorcycle – no, not “a motorcycle,” a new Yamaha FJR.

This bike has the engine capacity, luggage capacity, wind protection, and ergonomics to travel far.  It is the mount-of-choice of Iron Butt riders, but retains enough of the motorcycle soul to run through curves just so it can demonstrate it has proper balance and response.  It could easily take me to Atlanta, Charlotte, Florence, Fairplay, Labrador City or Gerlach, Nevada.  It could just as easily take me to work.  

Isn't this your dream?

But most importantly, it could take me to philosophical places where the mind-body-soul connections are nourished and cultivated; where the feel of experience is as important as the rationale of intellect; where humans go to feel more human.  Some folks need drum circles, poetry slams, incense, meditation, or intense exercise workouts to get there.  Some folks would rather get there by sitting in front of the TV and drinking beer.

Me?  I want a 2013, Stone Grey, Yamaha FJR.  I am certain it will get me there, no matter where it takes me.

7 – Two of Hud's Best Ski Moments

As mentioned in Chapter 6, I value ski areas that provide a fun day filled with a variety of runs, general enjoyment, and aesthetics.  

Those criteria are pretty typical for other experienced skiers, too; a few years ago, Jimmy D -- he snowboards -- and I spent the week on five of Colorado's smallest ski "resorts."  Ski Cooper is so small that they had sold out of their annual supply of embroidered patches, which I collect, and had no budget to order more for the remaining month of the season.  That's why I have a 10th Mountain Division patch; Ski Cooper sold out of regular patches, but had 10th Mountain patches to celebrate Leadville and Ski Cooper being home to the 10th Mountain Division snow soldiers.

Ski Cooper also provided me with two of my most memorable ski moments.  The area is so small that one of their primary lifts is actually a "slingshot" platter lift.  Instead of chairs dangling from an overhead cable, a slingshot platter lift has a rope dangling from a spring-loaded reel -- the slingshot.  The rope has a circular disk (the platter) at the bottom, which hangs at shoulder height when the reel has all the rope slack wound up tightly.

There are lots of these lifts around, but most are short.  Ski Cooper's is a full ten-minute ride from base to summit, and the only lift on that side of the mountain.

To ride a platter lift, you pull excess rope out of the reel, slip the platter between your thighs and up to your butt, clamp your thighs together, and sit back on the platter.  You remain standing on your skis, which (with luck) start to slide as the cable, reel, rope, and platter, start pulling you uphill.  Sounds complicated, and it is, the first few times you try it.  But Jimmy D and I are old -- ahem, experienced -- and have ridden these things before, so we weren't worried about it.  Besides, there were very few skiers on that side of the mountain, and riding the slingshot meant we could turn lap after lap after lap almost as if we were alone.

At the bottom, the lift operator was chatty (big points on friendly staff criterion for Ski Cooper) and mentioned something about the "halfway unloading point."  That mention went right by me, as many ski areas have unloading points halfway up, allowing inexperienced skiers the chance to avoid steep slopes farther up the mountainside.

A few minutes went by, and Jim started singing into the emptiness -- which is just fine with me.  It means he's having fun.  He's in front; I'm about thirty feet behind on the next successive platter, and here comes the halfway unloading point.  The snow is piled up about four feet, so that unloaders can release the platter at the top of the snowpile, and have a slight downward incline to ski away from the now-unladen rope/reel/platter.

Jim lets out a "WOOHOO!" as he goes over the snowpile, loud enough to wake up the drowsing lift operator bundled up in his warm hut and bored with the same lack of skier activity on this side of the mountain that attracted us.  

I lean a little forward as I start up the snowpile, digging in the tips of my skis for better steering control, and, unfortunately, the reel/rope went slack for a half-second.  The next half-second, it snapped up taut, pulled me sideways, and toppled me hard onto the snow.

My thighs clamped down tight on the platter to avoid being left behind.  I realized I was now being dragged uphill, pelvis first, at a brisk walking speed, by a relentlessly moving slingshot platter lift.  This absurdly ridiculous situation brought on an episode of uncontrollable laughter.  Time slowed down as these thoughts went through my brain:

"You're a moron."

The dragging continues.

"OK, it's not so bad.  Let's just get dragged to the top; can't be too much farther."

The dragging continues.

"OK, maybe it will be a LOT farther.  Let's try to stand up."

The dragging continues.

"If I flail around, I should be able to get my skis uphill of me, and have this abomination of a lift actually drag me up onto them."

The dragging continues, now with dramatic arm and leg flailing.

"Roll over onto my back, flop the skis up the hill ..."

Skis and poles clack together loudly as the flailing intensifies.

And boom!  Ski edges dig in and Hud the Stud pops up like a Weeble.

I'm still laughing uncontrollably, and realize that Jim's also been shouting and laughing the entire time, while digging frantically for his camera.  Too late for photo evidence, but I was the justifiable butt of his jokes for the rest of the morning.

We ran through Cooper's skiercross track several times and broke for lunch.  As self-proclaimed dirtbag skiers, Jim and I take pride in brown-bagging our lunch.  We scanned for an empty table on the only sundeck (Ski Cooper is small, remember?) and found a big one that was half-occupied by a large family.

"May we join you?" says Jim in his always-louder-than-necessary voice.

"Of course," says the middle-aged woman who was in charge of ... eight kids?  She looked great, hair sparkling in the sun, stylish bugeye sunglasses, tan face, and a wide, friendly smile: she was Ms. Perfect.  I was smitten, Jim knew it before it happened, and maneuvered so I was obligated to sit directly across from her.  (Thanks, Jim; you're a good buddy!)

Over the next 45 seconds, we learned they were an aggregation of three neighborhood family kids skiing today under the jurisdiction of Ms. Perfect, and they learned that we were submarine buddies on our annual age-denial trip.

As I slung my backpack onto the table to dig out my sandwich, tangerine, and string cheese, one of the kids says, "Hey!  You're the guy that got dragged up the hill!"

Bedlam: Jim and four of the kids begin shrieking with laughter, all trying to tell the story simultaneously by shouting louder than the others.  After the initial glee dissipated, I attempted to regain some macho (Ms. Perfect is sitting right there, for heaven's sake!) by claiming that my superb skiing skills were evidenced by my self-righting.

They weren't buying it.  

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Ski Cooper is the home of my Best Ski Run Ever.  After becoming a notorious legend for getting dragged up the Buckeye Platter Lift, Jim and I assumed the personas of Big Bad Boys Who Pwn This Mountain. [Ed: Not a typo.  Google it.]  We burned up tens of thousands of calories blasting through trees and speeding like twin comets down runs devoid of all humanity except us -- but shared with snowshoe hares, marmot-looking somethings, and deer tracks.  (Ski Cooper gets BIG points for wildlife activity.)

Late that afternoon, after huffing, puffing, and laughing all over the mountain, we decided to chill out a bit and go down the run directly under the chair.  It's designated as a double-black, but we'd surveyed it during several lift rides, we also know those black diamond ratings are relative, and right now, we fear nothing.

Standing at the top of the run, looking at the far horizon through thin, grey clouds over snow-covered evergreens, I noticed time slow down.  It had been a great day, full of laughter, thrills, old (and new) friends, red-line speed, some surprisingly tough terrain, and the silence that can only be not-heard in deep winter woodlands.  Jim was equally still.  The low rumbling of the empty chairlift reminded us of our purpose, and I said quietly, to no one, really, "Style points this run."

Jim said, "Cool," and started his flop/skip/hop dance to get his board moving.  As is our habit, I followed close behind.

There was a thin film of fresh snow, perhaps a quarter-inch, over hardpack snow that could have been there for eons.  That's an almost perfect surface for my style of swoosh-swoosh skiing, providing a dusting of snowflakes to be flung by my skis as they find firm footing underneath, providing secure grip for the ski's steel edge and sending me through the turn like I'm attached to a centrifuge.

Pando -- the double-black we had chosen -- was narrow for a Rocky Mountain ski run, twenty feet at most, cut through the forest specifically to place and maintain the chairlift pylons.  It's far too narrow for snowcat groomers, especially with the large pylons in the center every hundred feet or so.  But that's what makes chairlift runs so attractive to skiers: the snow and the terrain are pure and natural.  In the old days, ski areas discouraged skiing under the lifts, but lift line ski runs are as irresistible as Ms. Perfect at lunch,.

I focused intensely; skiing mandates that always, but this run was going to get my best effort.

Let's go.  Feel the g-forces.  Shift your weight and roll your boots.  Breathe.  Sight the next turn.  Lift your hand, plant your pole.  Feel the g-forces.  Shift your weight and roll your boots.  Breathe.  Sight the next turn.  Pole; G-forces; Shift; Roll; Breathe; Sight; Pole; G-forces; ...

A dance with the mountain, in unison with gravity, with an instinctive grasp of the physics involving friction, sharp steel, frozen snow, and the beautifully simple leverage of muscle, tendon, and bone.  It's all a sublimely personal symphony of so many variables synchronized to deliver an indescribable ecstasy ... until "breathe" turns to "pant" and then to "gasp."

I pause about a third of the way down.  No falls, no bad moves, no mistakes.  There's a father and son combo on the chair going overhead.  They look, their heads swivel to keep me in sight, but they say nothing.

Let's go.  The symphony begins to respond again, playing the familiar refrains as I conduct it: long turn, short turn, slide around this pylon close on my right forearm, slip between that pine sapling and the edge of the woods (my left pole catches the sapling; I feel it scrape along the pole shaft and the tug as it catches for an instant on the basket at the pole tip), and then turn straight downhill for a second to gain speed and raise the stakes a bit.  

I have confidence in my boots and skis, as a surgeon has confidence in her scalpels and clamps.  I have confidence in my 15-year experience, as a teacher has confidence starting his 15th year with the same material.  I have confidence in my ability (not bravado, although that's what will fill this evening, I know) and my physical conditioning.  But most importantly, I have the combination of attitude, mindset, and philosophy to fully enjoy this moment.

"Live in the Now."  This -- right now, on Pando, a double-black run on one of Colorado's smallest ski areas, on a chilly grey afternoon in February -- this is Living in the Now.

The breathe turns to pant turns to gasp again, but I ignore my respiratory system this time until it turns to grunt.

I stop again.  Still no faults.  Skis together so tightly that my boots bump each other.  The pole plants are just flicks against the dusty surface, and rocks and lift pylons are racing gates that I weave into my race against ... nothing.  

Or is it a race against everything?  Aging, life's problems, evil and nastiness in the world, inequality, injustice, loneliness, and all the things I want to forget.  Stopped, I gather myself.  The grunt slowly turns back into breathe, and I realize that for a few moments those things had indeed been completely banished.  My entire world had been the rhythmic repeat of turns.

Let's go.  Jim is at the bottom, about a football field away.  I know he's watching, and, as is our habit,  I know he'll provide an honest, though polite critique.

Turn follows turn follows turn, with a spectacular hockey stop, sliding sideways and spraying my good friend with snow up to his waist.

"Wow," he says reverently, ignoring the snow that's slithering down his pants.  "Was that a great run or what?"

"Best run ever," I respond.

Ironically, that's also a habit we repeat several times each ski day.  This time, though, both of us stand exquisitely still and quiet, looking at the mountain, each other, and back to the mountain.

"Best run ever," I repeat.  "Let's go."

Jim erupts in his boisterous laugh, turns and does his familiar flop/skip/hop, and begins sliding toward the bottom of the lift.

There's time for at least one more run before they kick us out of here.