"ASPEN: God please let my car start" Part 12
Well Gage and I went back to the apt to eat breakfast and get back to Ajax to ski freshies. Of course we got a small tongue lashing from our mother when we walked into the door. That was to be expected. She is after all our mother and no matter what we do in life she will always worry like moms do. Still God it gets old after a bit.
Mom: Umm I hope you boys wore rubbers.
Me: Now Mom come on. Did I tell you "I hope you made him use a rubber" on your dates?
Mom: Hey that is not fair.
Gage: Sure it is. And of course we wear rubbers mom. That new AIDS stuff is pretty scary.
Me: Jeez can we get back to eating eggs and getting ready to go skiing. This topic sucks.
So we finish eating and get ready. The reason we were skiing Ajax was because we had to be done skiing and back at the appartment by 1pm. They were flying out of Aspen at 3:30pm, so that left us 2 and a half hours of error time to play with. And boy even typing the time their plane was departing twenty years later still seems very lonely to me.
So we finished packing Mom and Gages things up. Gage left out a change of clothes for when we got done skiing for their plane ride back to Defiance, Ohio. Mom dropped us off at the Gondola to go do some final shopping. We walked up the stairs. Did a shot of Jack Daniels (thank you George), then got in the Gondola line like everybody else. MOOO MOOOO Gage and I stayed in the singles line and managed to get the 4th gondo car going up. We got just over "Copper Bowl" when the gondo came to a sudden halt. And BOING BOING BOING we went up and down, and up and down. I loved it when it did that there.
You see whenever the "Silver Queen Gondola" stops over Copper Bowl it is about a 500' drop strait down to the bottom. And it is one heck of a fun bungie boing type ride in the cabin if you get emergency stopped above it. Gives you the "old penis tingle" feeling with each bounce. Tourist's freak. There were 4 other people in the car with us. Two couples in their late 40's early 50's maybe. The one lady just lost it.
old lady: Oh my God, Oh my God. We are all going to die.
Yep she lost it but good. She started sobbing uncontrollably immediately when the car started bouncing. Her husband, and the other couple tried to calm her down. Man it was crazy. Nervous breakdown on the gondola in Aspen. Boy what a story that will make in the "Aspen Daily News": "woman freaks out in gondola car over Copper Bowl on Ajax. 5 people jump to their deaths because they couldn't take her whining".
Atleast that is what I was imagining in my head for what seemed like an eternity with that lady crying so much. I looked at Gage, and he looked back at me. We read each others minds. I then pulled a joint out.
Me: To bad this car is full of people
Gage: Man she has lost it. To bad we can't smoke that in here.
Then the gondola car got deadly silent after Gage's statement. And I mean oddly quiet. The women stopped crying and was calming down. But all 4 of them were staring at me with said doobie in hand. I thought I was going to get the drugs and skiing speech. Boy was I ever wrong.
Man1: Um are you guys going to spark that up in here.
**an alarm should have gone off in my head with what he just sad. they smoked pot too. duh**
Gage: What business is it of yours.
Me: Gage calm down. Why do you ask sir. We weren't going to. Just an attempt at bad humor. I'm sorry if I offended you.
Man1: Well if you do, would you mind sharing that splif with us. I think she can use it. She is afraid of heights and it is her first time on the gondola. She can handle the chairs, but this is her first time.
So I'm looking at them. They are looking at me and I'm thinking sure. Lets spark it up like the man said. I gave the joint to the nervous breakdown lady first. I thought she was going to "Boggart" the entire joint for a second there the way she was inhaling it. Frankly it was funny as hell after she got out of the Gondola.
Me: Um if you guys aren't from here this will hit you pretty hard at altitude. Where are you from by the way?
Man2: Chicago and it is our first day here. But we are from the sixties. I don't think this little bit of pot will bother us.
Gage: Wanna bet. My first day here last week after 3 tokes I was baked for hours. And I do mean hours.
Me: Hey man I live here and trust me it will hit you. So take it easy a bit. And when you stand up stand up slowly or you will get one hell of a head rush.
Well the car started moving about 10 minutes later. We opened the windows to let the smoke out. The nervous lady wasn't nervous anymore. Infact all of the sudden she couldn't shut the hell up about what a beautiful day it was going to be. The the Gondola car arrived up top and the doors opened for us to get out. The poor nervous breakdown lady forgot about her skis and promplty walked right strait into the door leading to the lift office knocking her flat backwards. God I wish I had a cam corder for that to put up on "YouTube"
Her friends helped her up, while Gage and I set their skis aside for them. We all laughed about it. So did she. They were great people. We chatted a bit and they offered to buy us lunch at Bonnies at 11. We accepted of course.
skibum golden rule 37: Bonnies has killer food, and if someone offers to buy you lunch there you accept it.
Well Gage and I decided to chew up the pow on the blues trails to start off. Besides Gage was pretty beat up from his week of skiing with me and my friends. So we cruised "Silver Bell" down to the Ajax express and did about 5 laps of gasing pow on the runs off of Ajax Express for the first hour. Mostly because Walsh's, Kristies, and Hyrups were not open yet. So we took Northstar down, and man did it ever have huge ass powder bumps. I looked up and Gage would dissappear around each bump. And it didn't matter if you were skiing them good or not. There was so much snow that everything was soft. A bump skiers dream actually. We would make 3 or 4 turns and fall, laugh, and then do it all over again. It was killer.
We got to Gentlemans ridge and instead of taking chair seven we hit Glade 3 for more powder fun. Dropped into Copper Bowl then round Kleenex Corner to the Bell Chair. Now the Bell chair is old and slow but the terrain it goes over is incrediable. Bell mtn on Ajax is known for it's bumps. And you better have rubber knees to ski them because they get huge.
So we whip down "Seiberts" to Copper Bowl for full on gas powder turns to the bottom, and then ride the Gondola back up to meet our pot smoking gondola fearing friends for lunch at Bonnies. Boy was I in rythem skiing that day. It was effortless turns the snow was so light. You felt like you could go on forever. Each turn was met with a smile, breath, then smile again.
Then we hit Kleenex corner and it was a train wreck as usual. "Kleenex Corner" is the main route down Ajax at the end of the day. It is icy as hell, and the face of "Little Nells" trail is always skied off boiler plate by noon because of it. That is why it is best to ski the east part of the mtn in the morning, then come down the west side trails on Ruthies run to end your day. You avoid the train wreck this way.
So we get to Bonnies and only ended up meeting the two men from the group. Seems the one lady got really stoned and really tired soon after we left them. So both women went back to their hotel. The men stayed and skied.
So we are going through the cafeteria line at Bonnies. I grab me a chicken sandwich, pasta salad, and a beer of course. I look over at the two gentleman and they looked like Bluto from the movie Animal House in the dorm cafeteria. They had their trays loaded. Cheeseburgers, soup, cookies, fries, onion rings, pudding, salad, chips, candy bars.
Seems they had a case of the munchies bigtime. We sat down and I proceded to watch them devour each and every morsle of food in front of them. I thought one was eyeing my pasta salad and was getting ready to ask me if I was going to finish it or not. I did finish It. I had the munchies too. But then Man1 noticed Jack. Jack being "Jack Nicoleson" the actor. Same guy that rides my lift everyday.
Now Jack likes to entertain no matter where he is. Infact he even eats like he is entertaining you. He purposefully eats funny to bust people staring at him. It's his way of mocking you. Today Jack was eating soup. He would dive his spoon strait into the soup. Then after the spoon cleared the bowl Jack would take his free non-spoon holding hand to push the spoon into his mouth all the while very loudly slurping his soup with perfect glee and satisfaction. You have just been entertained by Jack. The "Jack Nicoleson eating soup" story will be told at cocktail partys for generations.
Me: Jack is entertaining again. Look at how he is eating soup.
Man2: He doesn't do that on purpose does he.
Man1: Who cares he is Jack Nicoleson. He can do whatever he wants.
Gage: Pretty damn funny.
Me: Just look at all the people watching him. Watch their heads move up and down with each spoonful.
Sure enough everybody in Bonnies was watching Jack eat his soup. He caught a glimps of me and winked. I just started laughing. Jack slurped his soup louder after that. It was pricelss. But lunch was over and Gage and I had time for 3 more runs before we had to head out. We did what we always do when ending a ski day. We raced. We laughed. We enjoyed being brothers.
I won our race, but I lost too. Atleast that was what I was thinking as I watched their airplane take off into the horizon. My brother and I had a great time. It wasn't until I left when I was 17 for the Army that my relationship with my brother went bad. Gage felt I left him alone with our stepdad at the time "Rex". Rex wasn't good to Gage. I took care of that problem after I finished Airborne Training and went home on leave.
But this time our relationship was like those St John Lutheran School ski trips with Mr Lieski we took as kids. We skied, fell, raced, laughed, and ate like kings. And that is always a very cool thing.
So I drive back to my apt. It's clear and cold out. I'm somewhat depressed that my family had left and thinking about several issues. Then there she was. Sitting inside the doorway to my apt.
Tammy: High TJ. I thought you might be loney.
end of part 12
Mom: Umm I hope you boys wore rubbers.
Me: Now Mom come on. Did I tell you "I hope you made him use a rubber" on your dates?
Mom: Hey that is not fair.
Gage: Sure it is. And of course we wear rubbers mom. That new AIDS stuff is pretty scary.
Me: Jeez can we get back to eating eggs and getting ready to go skiing. This topic sucks.
So we finish eating and get ready. The reason we were skiing Ajax was because we had to be done skiing and back at the appartment by 1pm. They were flying out of Aspen at 3:30pm, so that left us 2 and a half hours of error time to play with. And boy even typing the time their plane was departing twenty years later still seems very lonely to me.
So we finished packing Mom and Gages things up. Gage left out a change of clothes for when we got done skiing for their plane ride back to Defiance, Ohio. Mom dropped us off at the Gondola to go do some final shopping. We walked up the stairs. Did a shot of Jack Daniels (thank you George), then got in the Gondola line like everybody else. MOOO MOOOO Gage and I stayed in the singles line and managed to get the 4th gondo car going up. We got just over "Copper Bowl" when the gondo came to a sudden halt. And BOING BOING BOING we went up and down, and up and down. I loved it when it did that there.
You see whenever the "Silver Queen Gondola" stops over Copper Bowl it is about a 500' drop strait down to the bottom. And it is one heck of a fun bungie boing type ride in the cabin if you get emergency stopped above it. Gives you the "old penis tingle" feeling with each bounce. Tourist's freak. There were 4 other people in the car with us. Two couples in their late 40's early 50's maybe. The one lady just lost it.
old lady: Oh my God, Oh my God. We are all going to die.
Yep she lost it but good. She started sobbing uncontrollably immediately when the car started bouncing. Her husband, and the other couple tried to calm her down. Man it was crazy. Nervous breakdown on the gondola in Aspen. Boy what a story that will make in the "Aspen Daily News": "woman freaks out in gondola car over Copper Bowl on Ajax. 5 people jump to their deaths because they couldn't take her whining".
Atleast that is what I was imagining in my head for what seemed like an eternity with that lady crying so much. I looked at Gage, and he looked back at me. We read each others minds. I then pulled a joint out.
Me: To bad this car is full of people
Gage: Man she has lost it. To bad we can't smoke that in here.
Then the gondola car got deadly silent after Gage's statement. And I mean oddly quiet. The women stopped crying and was calming down. But all 4 of them were staring at me with said doobie in hand. I thought I was going to get the drugs and skiing speech. Boy was I ever wrong.
Man1: Um are you guys going to spark that up in here.
**an alarm should have gone off in my head with what he just sad. they smoked pot too. duh**
Gage: What business is it of yours.
Me: Gage calm down. Why do you ask sir. We weren't going to. Just an attempt at bad humor. I'm sorry if I offended you.
Man1: Well if you do, would you mind sharing that splif with us. I think she can use it. She is afraid of heights and it is her first time on the gondola. She can handle the chairs, but this is her first time.
So I'm looking at them. They are looking at me and I'm thinking sure. Lets spark it up like the man said. I gave the joint to the nervous breakdown lady first. I thought she was going to "Boggart" the entire joint for a second there the way she was inhaling it. Frankly it was funny as hell after she got out of the Gondola.
Me: Um if you guys aren't from here this will hit you pretty hard at altitude. Where are you from by the way?
Man2: Chicago and it is our first day here. But we are from the sixties. I don't think this little bit of pot will bother us.
Gage: Wanna bet. My first day here last week after 3 tokes I was baked for hours. And I do mean hours.
Me: Hey man I live here and trust me it will hit you. So take it easy a bit. And when you stand up stand up slowly or you will get one hell of a head rush.
Well the car started moving about 10 minutes later. We opened the windows to let the smoke out. The nervous lady wasn't nervous anymore. Infact all of the sudden she couldn't shut the hell up about what a beautiful day it was going to be. The the Gondola car arrived up top and the doors opened for us to get out. The poor nervous breakdown lady forgot about her skis and promplty walked right strait into the door leading to the lift office knocking her flat backwards. God I wish I had a cam corder for that to put up on "YouTube"
Her friends helped her up, while Gage and I set their skis aside for them. We all laughed about it. So did she. They were great people. We chatted a bit and they offered to buy us lunch at Bonnies at 11. We accepted of course.
skibum golden rule 37: Bonnies has killer food, and if someone offers to buy you lunch there you accept it.
Well Gage and I decided to chew up the pow on the blues trails to start off. Besides Gage was pretty beat up from his week of skiing with me and my friends. So we cruised "Silver Bell" down to the Ajax express and did about 5 laps of gasing pow on the runs off of Ajax Express for the first hour. Mostly because Walsh's, Kristies, and Hyrups were not open yet. So we took Northstar down, and man did it ever have huge ass powder bumps. I looked up and Gage would dissappear around each bump. And it didn't matter if you were skiing them good or not. There was so much snow that everything was soft. A bump skiers dream actually. We would make 3 or 4 turns and fall, laugh, and then do it all over again. It was killer.
We got to Gentlemans ridge and instead of taking chair seven we hit Glade 3 for more powder fun. Dropped into Copper Bowl then round Kleenex Corner to the Bell Chair. Now the Bell chair is old and slow but the terrain it goes over is incrediable. Bell mtn on Ajax is known for it's bumps. And you better have rubber knees to ski them because they get huge.
So we whip down "Seiberts" to Copper Bowl for full on gas powder turns to the bottom, and then ride the Gondola back up to meet our pot smoking gondola fearing friends for lunch at Bonnies. Boy was I in rythem skiing that day. It was effortless turns the snow was so light. You felt like you could go on forever. Each turn was met with a smile, breath, then smile again.
Then we hit Kleenex corner and it was a train wreck as usual. "Kleenex Corner" is the main route down Ajax at the end of the day. It is icy as hell, and the face of "Little Nells" trail is always skied off boiler plate by noon because of it. That is why it is best to ski the east part of the mtn in the morning, then come down the west side trails on Ruthies run to end your day. You avoid the train wreck this way.
So we get to Bonnies and only ended up meeting the two men from the group. Seems the one lady got really stoned and really tired soon after we left them. So both women went back to their hotel. The men stayed and skied.
So we are going through the cafeteria line at Bonnies. I grab me a chicken sandwich, pasta salad, and a beer of course. I look over at the two gentleman and they looked like Bluto from the movie Animal House in the dorm cafeteria. They had their trays loaded. Cheeseburgers, soup, cookies, fries, onion rings, pudding, salad, chips, candy bars.
Seems they had a case of the munchies bigtime. We sat down and I proceded to watch them devour each and every morsle of food in front of them. I thought one was eyeing my pasta salad and was getting ready to ask me if I was going to finish it or not. I did finish It. I had the munchies too. But then Man1 noticed Jack. Jack being "Jack Nicoleson" the actor. Same guy that rides my lift everyday.
Now Jack likes to entertain no matter where he is. Infact he even eats like he is entertaining you. He purposefully eats funny to bust people staring at him. It's his way of mocking you. Today Jack was eating soup. He would dive his spoon strait into the soup. Then after the spoon cleared the bowl Jack would take his free non-spoon holding hand to push the spoon into his mouth all the while very loudly slurping his soup with perfect glee and satisfaction. You have just been entertained by Jack. The "Jack Nicoleson eating soup" story will be told at cocktail partys for generations.
Me: Jack is entertaining again. Look at how he is eating soup.
Man2: He doesn't do that on purpose does he.
Man1: Who cares he is Jack Nicoleson. He can do whatever he wants.
Gage: Pretty damn funny.
Me: Just look at all the people watching him. Watch their heads move up and down with each spoonful.
Sure enough everybody in Bonnies was watching Jack eat his soup. He caught a glimps of me and winked. I just started laughing. Jack slurped his soup louder after that. It was pricelss. But lunch was over and Gage and I had time for 3 more runs before we had to head out. We did what we always do when ending a ski day. We raced. We laughed. We enjoyed being brothers.
I won our race, but I lost too. Atleast that was what I was thinking as I watched their airplane take off into the horizon. My brother and I had a great time. It wasn't until I left when I was 17 for the Army that my relationship with my brother went bad. Gage felt I left him alone with our stepdad at the time "Rex". Rex wasn't good to Gage. I took care of that problem after I finished Airborne Training and went home on leave.
But this time our relationship was like those St John Lutheran School ski trips with Mr Lieski we took as kids. We skied, fell, raced, laughed, and ate like kings. And that is always a very cool thing.
So I drive back to my apt. It's clear and cold out. I'm somewhat depressed that my family had left and thinking about several issues. Then there she was. Sitting inside the doorway to my apt.
Tammy: High TJ. I thought you might be loney.
end of part 12
posted by tjbrk | 8:37 PM
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