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Salvation from within

I think now might be a good time to bear in mind the sage words of Donald Rumsfeld who displayed an uncanny grasp of the obvious when he said, “Stuff happens.” Stuff does indeed happen.
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I think now might be a good time to bear in mind the sage words of Donald Rumsfeld who displayed an uncanny grasp of the obvious when he said, “Stuff happens.” Stuff does indeed happen.

Or we could try to find solace in the anonymous words — though I like to think they may have been first uttered by Galileo when word reached him that higher-ups in the Church had gotten wind of his Earth-revolves-around-sun proof — “All publicity is good publicity.”

While there may be, admittedly, slim solace to be found in the attendant publicity swirling around Excalibur’s — choose your words carefully here, Max — brush with erectile dysfunction, the warm glow of bonhomie lavished on Tylenol some decades ago when they very positively and very humanly reacted to poisoned product leaps to mind. Knowing what I know about the obsessive dedication the top guys at the Mothercorp share towards safety issues, especially lift safety issues, and their ability to be honest brokers, I believe the cost we will all pay for Tuesday’s detowering will be as low as possible.

And let’s not lose sight of how horribly worse the outcome might have been. Everyone walked away, injuries were minimal, safety engineering and redundant systems kept the rest of the lift upright, future adventure stories bordering on the mythological were created and no animals were harmed.

Still, the timing sucked.

Of all the things we needed this year, something to remind everyone of the inherent risks associated with the sport we love the most, especially the ones we give virtually no thought to, was not among them. Snow, we needed; visitors having the time of their lives, we needed; high spirits and a festive glow, we needed; a buoyant holiday to take our collective minds off the world economic meltdown, we needed. Media vultures of the if-it-bleeds-it-leads school of journalism, we needed about as much as a drowning man needs a glass of water.

This seems destined to be the season that tests the stuff we’re made of. The snow is coming late and largely out of snowguns, although the blessed white stuff is, for the moment, once again falling from the sky. The predictions coming out of all governmental and quasi-governmental bodies are uniformly gloomy. Massive financial frauds are popping to the surface like bloated corpses after a flood as the reality of asset deleveraging makes everything — with the possible exception of anything I buy at the grocery store — worth less and less with each passing day. Jobs, savings and hopes are vanishing like farts in a stiff wind. Fewer people are thinking ski vacation while more and more people are feeling they’re trapped in a low-rent version of Survivor : Everywhere.

And it’s so cold, I’ve been dreaming Cuban dreams. I’ve been feeling the fantasized heat as I bury cold toes in warm sand and virtually taste the sugary sweet kiss of rum and Coke pass my parched lips. Had my favourite rum purveyor not gone to work for Vincor and started pushing good wine, this would have been a marvelously serendipitous moment to plug his product. As it is, I’ll have to rework my fantasy to incorporate the warming effects of a little mulled Jackson-Triggs… which kind of pooches the Cuban thing but works well in a seasonally-appropriate, chestnuts roasting on an open fire way, don’tcha think?

This is shaping up to be a very Dickensian Christmas. Not of the bah humbug Scrooge variety, more of the “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times” kind. Okay, more like it was the worst of times kind, although I haven’t entirely given up hope for the best of times to show up fashionably late to the party with a darn good excuse for what made him so tardy.

Perhaps the best of times will be the very good time those of us who call this fools’ paradise home can show the nice folks who’ve come to visit. Whistler is filling with people who have never been here before but have wanted to come for quite some time. It’s filling with people who have been here and come back every year to spend Christmas in the best place they know to spend it. It’s filling with people who call this place their home away from home and return each December to recapture the warm glow of hope, to recharge their batteries — drained perhaps into the danger zone this year — and to recapture the unfettered, soul-restoring freedom of sliding down snowy mountains on a single hill almost lost in a landscape of giant peaks.

The best thing we can do for them is yin their yang, show ’em we’re almost as happy to see them as we are to be here ourselves. We are happy to be here, aren’t we? Of course we are. However bitter coming recession, depression, economic mayhem is going to be, I’d rather tough it out here than anywhere else. This town has a resilience, a strength of will and a tightly-knit sense of community that’s almost impossible to match anywhere else. Sure, we bitch and moan about things, but we check that navel-gazing at the door when we have to dig deep and pull together.

It’s time to transcend our individual woes and rise above the petty. A good start would be to follow ignorance toward bliss. Turn off the TV news, leave the newspaper — not this one, silly — on the rack. Whenever someone starts to talk about the economy or Excalibur, start talking back about what a great run you had earlier today, the walk in the woods you took with your dog, the sweaty skinny ski you forced yourself to take at the Whistler Olympic Park, your hope for the future.

Smile at someone you don’t know. Offer to show some tourists where whatever it is they’re looking for is hidden. Chat ’em up as you walk them to it; you might discover they’ve got a fascinating story of their own. Revel in the wish-they-were-you glow when they discover you actually live here, you lucky devil. Pop your head in a couple of retail stores and wish the people in there a Merry Christmas or, if that feels too fraught with political incorrectness for you, Happy Holidays. Make a donation to the food bank or, if you can’t afford a donation and may even have to make a withdrawal, volunteer a couple of hours to help out. Come out to the carol sing next week and bask in the warm glow of community.

These are the times that show us what we are. If what you see is as good as I imagine it is, proudly show it to everyone else you come across. It just may be our salvation.