by G.D. Maxwell
Its happening.
Not today and not tomorrow but the day after that and the day after that, its happening. Jeez, talk about testing a guys resolve, throwing temptation in his path, leading him astray. Might just as well have given me the winning lottery numbers, a case of scotch or a place to call my own.
Everything in my overflowing in-baskets getting the bums rush instead of the usual, thoughtful, occasionally original and even creative spin my editors have come to expect. It was all I could do to sit down long enough to write this column instead of digging into the archives for one old enough no one would remember it first appeared back in the day when people took Candidate Nebbeling seriously.
Even politics is taking a back seat, attention spanwise!
Its Ma Natures fault. Well, hers and the Mothercorps. Those heartless manipulators and spinmeisters on Blackcomb Way have opportunistically decided to open one of two mountains this weekend to either tempt fate or reward patience. Bless you gentlemen and ladies, bless you.
I apologize in advance to whomever I sit next to Saturday at the All-Candidates Beauty Pageant and Group Love-In. Ill be the guy in the dripping, steaming, never-seen-the-inside-of-a-washing-machine ski gear. Ill share whatevers left in my flask with you if thats any consolation and we can heckle together, possibly in harmony if you know how to heckle in harmony. Ill carry the melody.
Since the press release first appeared Monday, my attentions been blurred. I think its the wax fumes. I know its pointless, okay, relatively pointless to tune and wax rock skis, powder skis I probably wont ride for another month, touring skis I definitely wont ride for a while, skis Ill probably never ride again in my life and friends skis just so theyll feel obliged to go up with me this weekend and share the buzz, but Ive got to do something to keep from busting out of my skin.
IM GOING SKIING THIS WEEKEND!
Please, if youre a snowboarder, read the word skiing as being expansive enough to include what you do. The seasons just starting; my hearts big enough to embrace your passion as well as mine. Were brothers and sisters under the skin, at least until we run into each other.
This is why I moved here. This is, in all probability, why you moved here. Ever wonder why those people you meet every now and then who dont ski or board moved here? Me too. Weird, isnt it. It reminds me a little of living in Montreal all the drawbacks of living on an island with none of the steel band, hot sun, cold rum drinks comforts. Whats with that?
But you and I, we moved here to slide down these mountains and in one more sleep, well get our chance.
Thats exciting. The start of every season, like the start of so many things, is exciting. Nothin but promise and hope. If youre new to town, maybe youve heard unsettling stories about last season. You probably havent heard about what happened in 1994. That year cmon, it wasnt that long ago October was very Octoberish, rained some, sunny some, nothing much in the way of snow though. Then the clock struck November and the sunny some disappeared, rain turned to snow and we woke up every morning, or at least almost every morning, to brush 10 or a dozen inches of fluff off our cars or cats or whatever wed left outside all night.
Ever opportunistic and community-minded, the guys who ran Blackcomb they didnt own Whistler then; imagine that opened early. I dont think they opened as early as this year but they opened pretty early. It kept snowing, night after night, day after day until finally we were skiing from the top to bottom of Blackcomb on November 11 th , ± 2 days, the coefficient of a faulty, substance-abused memory.
Will this year be that good? Who cares; its all good.
Even after doin it and writing about it for as long as Ive done both, I still dont understand the magic of sliding down snowy mountains. I dont understand why the onset of winter is such a joyous celebration for people who ski while the same season envelops the lives of non-skiers with a foreboding sense of doom and loathing. I dont understand how this pastime can bridge otherwise chasmic gaps of class, age and socioeconomics such that a CEO and a workerbee hes exploited, whose pension fund hes raided and whose future hes thrown to the wolves can sit in the same hot tub after a day on the slopes and chatter like kids about the runs they had and their plans for tomorrow.
Its almost enough to make me forget about the very serious nonsense at hand. Almost, but not quite.
I moved here to ski. I moved here to live. I didnt move here to write cranky columns about dithering politicians. Or if I did, I meant to write cranky columns about dithering provincial or national politicians. Or better yet, cranky columns about how the dithering idiot sitting in the White House is ruining the country I was born in, bring the world to the brink of political and environmental disaster and generally making me ashamed to be both an American and a recovering Christian.
But thats not the way things turned out. Somewhere along the way the little town that could slipped off the rails on its trip to Blissville. As unbelievable as is sounds, it was just a few years ago I was writing about how weird it was to not have anything going on in local politics to gripe about, how well the mayor and council were running things, how rosy the future looked. It was like a good dream.
The dream is over. John Lennon said that.
Now we have to get the dream back. And that means we you, me, the rest of the usual suspects need to grind out a few more weeks of work. We need to find out what these candidates who want our vote really stand for, what they want to bring to the table, what kind of Whistler theyre interested in helping make happen. That means we need to listen to what they have to say, ask them tough questions, ask ourselves tougher questions and listen to their answers, watch their faces, try to figure out if theyre being straight with us or shining us on.
What kind of tough questions? Thats up to you. Listen, ask, learn. And dont forget to ski; itll make even the drudgery of doing your civic duty a lighter task.