A short drive through a valley
in the beautiful White Mountains brought me to a warm reception at my second mountain of the day, Black Mountain, a small
family place that I had visited when my kids were younger. It was the beginning of the season, in fact the opening weekend
for Black AND I was the first customer of the winter - in all my years of skiing this was the first time as the first customer
on the first day for me.
As I was now going for SIX Mountains
in one day, I now was concerned about time so ... I developed a system of putting on my boots while working out the ticket
details with the ticket lady Ruth. I asked again for the employee with the longest tenure and Wayne showed up (see photo)
with his wool orange (my favorite color so I knew we would get along) full face mask and a container of oil for the ski lift
- this was just the type of people I was looking for - the folks that actually make the mountain work - not just the front
office folks (no offense to all of you out there).
One of my side objectives of this
saga was to try, in a non-scientific manner, to identify the key character traits of the current rural New Englander. Wayne presented my first opportunity to identify a key New England trait – shyness. Wayne gave me a strong handshake but with diverted eyes. He said a quite hello and after some prodding told me the oil was for one of the snowmobiles – but
that was it. Being from Bangor Maine where I grew up with lots of shy people
I did not take his reticence as rude or insulting, just the reaction of a reserved person.
A long ride up a short lift and
I was greeted by the friendly safety guy outside the booth at the top of lift and I was off for my one and only run.
And it was a good run – and presented me with another life long skiing first – namely to ski along side turkeys
that had escaped from the farm next door. Now, I have skied with some turkeys
in my life but this is the first with the real thing!
I finished my one and only run
with a wave to my new lift loader friends and Frank, a quick exit out of my boots and a good buy to the rental guy - who buy
the way took the other photo with me in the stretcher.
