- Joined
- Apr 26, 2017
- Posts
- 180
Well ...
Here is a nice story .
I will be 65 in August ...
I was born dirt poor but my father had illusions about our social standing so , when I was 8 , he decided to buy me a pair of skis and boots ... only t go the the Plains of Abraham where you could find a 50 ft hill cleared of trees .
He arrived home one day with a pair of Alberg skis and a pair of Sears boots .
The boots were way too big and I did not know anything about skiing so skis ... what about skis ??
The next Saturday we went to the Plains and , in the car , I was unable to tie the laces of my boots ... He did it for me ...
Then the skis ... no one in the family knew about skiing ( my mother and young brother were there with a '' traine sauvage '' ) ... so we had to look at what other people were doing .
I tied and tried and tried ...
I was totally unable to bend forward to snap down the front lever . In fact I was unable to bend and place the cable behind my boots !!!!!
Too chubby and no flexibility at all ...............
My father arranged everything and , without more instructions , pushed me down the slope ...
I went 50 feet then cartwheeled the balance of the hill .
Up I tried to go ... no way ... I had to wait for my father ...
The same happened again and again that afternoon .
And the next Saturday afternoon .
And the next one too ...
My father was going down with the '' Traine Sauvage '' with my brother and , on the last saturday , he flew off a bump and landed on his coccyx ...
A broken coccyx ... no more sledding ... and no more skiing for Jean Pierre ... and : ''anyway he is not good at it ... probably could get the hang of it ... '' .
So the skiing aquipment went into a closet ...
I tried to use it two years later - once - going with some friends to Mt Lauzon .
It was a total disaster ... I am convinced the people skiing there at the time remember my only descent ... Could it be that I did 10 ft on my legs , hit a bump and cartwheeled ( rotation and translation ) down the entire slope ? I don't remember clearly because , at the bottom , I was in a daze .
The skis and boots went into the closet again .
Forever I wished !
My mother , after a few years , gave away the skis to her brother who had a lot of children .
I went on to rediscover skiing on my own at 16 , not chubby anymore ....
The skis ?
Never saw them again .
I travelled , lived outside the country , married , had a son , my mother and father passed away and I stopped seeing my mother's family around the time I restarted skiing .
Never a thought about my old equipment ...
This January , I received a message in my blog ... I write about skiing and climbing and surfing ... I wrote for magazines and I also wrote books ...
Someone was saying that she was my second cousin and that she had , in her summer home , a pair of skis belonging to me !!
Would I be interested ?
Obviously I said yes ....
But the virus stopped the reunion as the skis were at the end of a very confined province .
Yesterday I went to see her ... near Mont Lauzon ... and I NOW HAVE MY OLD SKIS ...
58 years +/- after the first time I tried to snap the spring lever .
Here they are ...
As you can see , the tumbles got to their skins !
But why is there no Arlberg section in the ski's manufacturers list ?
Here is a nice story .
I will be 65 in August ...
I was born dirt poor but my father had illusions about our social standing so , when I was 8 , he decided to buy me a pair of skis and boots ... only t go the the Plains of Abraham where you could find a 50 ft hill cleared of trees .
He arrived home one day with a pair of Alberg skis and a pair of Sears boots .
The boots were way too big and I did not know anything about skiing so skis ... what about skis ??
The next Saturday we went to the Plains and , in the car , I was unable to tie the laces of my boots ... He did it for me ...
Then the skis ... no one in the family knew about skiing ( my mother and young brother were there with a '' traine sauvage '' ) ... so we had to look at what other people were doing .
I tied and tried and tried ...
I was totally unable to bend forward to snap down the front lever . In fact I was unable to bend and place the cable behind my boots !!!!!
Too chubby and no flexibility at all ...............
My father arranged everything and , without more instructions , pushed me down the slope ...
I went 50 feet then cartwheeled the balance of the hill .
Up I tried to go ... no way ... I had to wait for my father ...
The same happened again and again that afternoon .
And the next Saturday afternoon .
And the next one too ...
My father was going down with the '' Traine Sauvage '' with my brother and , on the last saturday , he flew off a bump and landed on his coccyx ...
A broken coccyx ... no more sledding ... and no more skiing for Jean Pierre ... and : ''anyway he is not good at it ... probably could get the hang of it ... '' .
So the skiing aquipment went into a closet ...
I tried to use it two years later - once - going with some friends to Mt Lauzon .
It was a total disaster ... I am convinced the people skiing there at the time remember my only descent ... Could it be that I did 10 ft on my legs , hit a bump and cartwheeled ( rotation and translation ) down the entire slope ? I don't remember clearly because , at the bottom , I was in a daze .
The skis and boots went into the closet again .
Forever I wished !
My mother , after a few years , gave away the skis to her brother who had a lot of children .
I went on to rediscover skiing on my own at 16 , not chubby anymore ....
The skis ?
Never saw them again .
I travelled , lived outside the country , married , had a son , my mother and father passed away and I stopped seeing my mother's family around the time I restarted skiing .
Never a thought about my old equipment ...
This January , I received a message in my blog ... I write about skiing and climbing and surfing ... I wrote for magazines and I also wrote books ...
Someone was saying that she was my second cousin and that she had , in her summer home , a pair of skis belonging to me !!
Would I be interested ?
Obviously I said yes ....
But the virus stopped the reunion as the skis were at the end of a very confined province .
Yesterday I went to see her ... near Mont Lauzon ... and I NOW HAVE MY OLD SKIS ...
58 years +/- after the first time I tried to snap the spring lever .
Here they are ...
As you can see , the tumbles got to their skins !
But why is there no Arlberg section in the ski's manufacturers list ?