When Silas Was Young and Beautiful

In front of the main lodge at Keystone, Colorado, a wonderful place for any kind of skiing but with regular people since the Ferrari crowd goes to Aspen.  Photographer was probably The Astronomer and it was shot somewhere around the early 80's.  Nearby are Arapaho for high-mountain bowl skiing and also Breckenridge which is another much like Keystone.  My gloves may still be on top of the post there where I forgot them.


Not too much of me stuff was busted at that stage, a few bones here or there but not much.  And, no, that's not a dimple.  Accuse me of anything you like but I do not have dimples.


For the live moment, things roll a bit introspective but I'm slashed, it sucks, and it'll be about another day and a half before the stitches come out.  Thanks in advance for get well soon but it's not necessary as it will come soon but it just bugs the fuck out of me right now (larfs).

It's not a huge deal as many of you know how it goes right about this stage when you grit yer teeth because otherwise you would pull out those fookin' stitches with yer fingernails!  There's a surprising bloody lot of them, although not so messy now.

The beauty part is it's on me face and me back at the same time.  And, yah, I'll have a little bitch over it and it's not a huge whine as some of you know this squirmy stage just now.  Just get those fookin' stitches out!  (larfs)


The marvel is some of you don't know this schtick. Some lead charmed lives and they hardly ever break.  I'm sure you know or have known someone like this.  Many break an arm as a kid but, nope, they never did.  Many have a car crash at some point and, nope, they never did.  Many have parts which just break down but, again, nope, never happened.  I'm sure you know someone as they don't get sick much either.

(Ed: the space aliens who live and work among us?)

Could be, Django. Could be.

You can ski hard at Keystone if you like and there's one head-down, vertical drop which is full of moguls the size of polar bears!

(Ed:  you exaggerate!)

Well, maybe a wee bit.  Blame it on the space aliens.  They love that thinner air in the mountains.

Schoolmarm is the Keystone run for sandbagging and looking pretty.  It's for novice skiers but with enough of a slope to tease and titillate them them (i.e. crash them) but that was plenty for lazy carving down the mountain, perfect for when you're too stoned to really bang it but still want to get a bit of ski time wind in the face.

(Ed:  you were even stoned back then?)

Keep tellin' you, Gonzo, it goes back, off and on but mostly on, to when I was fifteen.  I'm sixty-five now (larfs).  I'm not worth busting ... an old, broke white guy with less than an OZ of the ganja ... pfft ... it's not even worth the cop's gas money to drive me downtown to get me booked.

This would be my No. 1 Pick if I were going to take the Fairy Princess up to experience the mountains and maybe get to learn about life on a pair of sliders.  She will probably prefer a snowboard, as most Fairy Princesses will, but don't tell me since, for me, they just don't have the elegance of real downhill.

And, before you go off on real downhill, be sure you're up-to-date on performing a Telemark turn.  If you're really good with cross-country skis then you can handle the way your heel lifts from the ski and this can be exploited to execute one of the most beautiful moves in downhill skiing, the Telemark Turn.  When you can ski cross-country skis in this way, particularly on a real downhill slope rather than the normal use of going overland, you have reached the true Big Dawg status with the Downhill.

To execute a Telemark Turn, the downhill ski performs the carve for the turn but the uphill ski, because of the flexible binding, is turned probably thirty+ degrees to it and, when done well, it's magnificently beautiful to watch.

This is one of those times when a man can be beautiful but no-one asks, well, I wonder if he likes show tunes, you know (larfs).

Lotho knows these things as he was a natural on skis.  I saw him casually knocking out ballet moves with normal downhill skis (i.e. binding is rigid) almost as soon as he was standing on the skis with a reasonable chance of staying that way for a while.  I did not see him do a Telemark Turn but it was only a matter of time because, see above, he was a natural.

Some of you know it up there in the mountains where the air is so clean and pure but most of all there's the silence.  It's not so much a matter of getting away from anything but rather it's getting back to how things are supposed to be.  Caveman Bubba didn't hear city buses, honking horns, or anyone shouting, "Hands up!  Don't shoot!"

One of the best parts of Keystone was the lifts closed at four pm and that meant only thing:  it's time for spaghetti.  Assuming you weren't some bum who only hung around the lodge, you have burned up some major calories so there's only one answer:  see above about spaghetti.

There was a place for a spaghetti feast which, coincidentally enough, opened up in time for the lifts to close and the whole deal in that place was Barkeep, Pasta and Keep It Coming!  You know the glory times, right ... when you have had a good day skiing and now you're hanging out with friends, stuffing your faces with spaghetti.  These are the best of times, lads!


(Ed:  I thought right now is the best of times??)

It is, matey, but it's a different kind of best of times.  Ha!  It's a Zen thing, Confucius.  That time is this time and, you know, I am the walrus.


There may be protests to say the Fairy Princess is too young for skis at six years but the FFB (i.e. Fraser's First Bunny) was up on plastic baby skis at fifteen months.  I have extreme difficulty with that age because, even as someone with no kids, that age doesn't seem like it's anywhere near big enough to do it.  My guess would be four or five years at the youngest for her.

Whatever her age, I would ski down the learner slope with my skis well apart so she could stand between them.  I would hold her little hands and we would ski on down the hill that way.  It was a delight for her and sure I got a Cowboy Bob tingle out of it.

Regrettably I don't have a pic of that as it was five-star adorable.  She was teeny tiny but she had her li'l pink ski outfit and she wore a cowboy hat ... and a big, big smile.