Mystery Glimpse: Who’s Diligently At Work?
They’re Lucky To Be In The Mountains And Not Where They Were.
This should be relatively easy. Who are these chaps? What are they doing? Where are they doing it? When? Look closely. There are clues you can see.
Thanks, again, to the Colorado Snowsports Museum and Hall of Fame for contributing this picture. The museum’s website has some well-researched articles on the history of snow sports of all kinds in the Rocky Mountains and Colorado. Click here for more. SeniorsSkiing.com thanks Dana Mathios, Director of Collections, for working with us on this series.
Last Week
We thought this would be more difficult. Clearly, there are some fans of Queen Maud of Norway out there. The photo is the young Queen, right, skiing with her sister, Princess Victoria, in 1907. The Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum contributed this photo. Apparently, this pose was an attempt by English-born Maud to look more “Norwegian”.
Queen Maud was daughter of Britain’s Edward VII, was raised in England, and married a Danish prince. Clearly, inter-marriage of royals was a way to ensure longevity for blue bloods. During her first years in Norway, she and her spouse were photographed in Norwegian folk costumes, and enjoying winter sports such as skiing, to give them a Norwegian appearance in the eyes of the public. Hence, this picture.
In 1877, Norwegian Americans began collecting and preserving objects at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, documenting their chapter of the immigrant story, making them pioneers in the preservation of cultural diversity in America. That early collection
Maud of Wales in 1906
has grown into one of the most comprehensive museums in the United States dedicated to a single immigrant group—Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum, now an independent not-for-profit organization accredited by the American Alliance of Museums (AAM).
My Career As A Folk Singer
An Undergraduate’s Parody Ski Song Led To An Academic Achievement.
How did a ski silly ski song to the tune of a classic melody wind up on a Folkways record which became a classroom classic?
As an undergraduate at Michigan State University in the early 1950s I joined the ski club, and I learned, among other things (like how to kick turn), a bunch of ski songs. We sang them driving up to Caberfae resort near Cadillac and apres ski in a local joint, The Pine Gardens.
These songs—passed from person to person—were often parodies. A takeoff on “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” told the sad tale of an injured ski racer with the chorus “Gory, gory, what a Hell of a way to die!”
Another disaster-themed favorite re-worded the cowboy ballad “Streets of Laredo.”
When I was a-skiing the hills of Sun Valley,
As I was a-skiing Old Baldy one day,
I spied a young skier all wrapped in alpaca,
All wrapped in alpaca, and cold as der Schnee.
This lugubrious piece went on to quote the injured skier who “Once upon Baldy used to ski gaily” but then “caught a right edge, and I’m dying today.”
Later as a graduate student in folklore at Indiana University I took a course on British ballads and learned that our Sun Valley song was part of a much older cycle of variations on the theme of “The Unfortunate Rake.” That’s “rake” in the archaic sense of a dissolute person, a libertine.
Author Jan Brunvand, occasional singer of ski songs, in the 50s.
In the original Irish and English versions the victim was a young soldier, dying from an STD, who describes his sad condition and requests a funeral: “Get six young soldiers to carry my coffin,/ Six young girls to sing me a song.”
In the cowboy song the funeral request became “Beat your drums slowly and play your fife lowly, /Get six of them gamblers to carry me along.” Our skiers’ parody called for “Six from the ski school to carry my coffin,/ Six little bunnies to sing me a song.”
One of my classmates, a rising star in folksong studies, was compiling a record of versions and variants of the “Rake” cycle. He enlisted me to sing the skiers’ version. Trouble was, I couldn’t sing worth a darn.
So we got another fellow student who performed in a local folksong group to plunk guitar chords to keep me more-or-less on key, and I managed to lay down a decent track, as we say in the business.
The LP was issued by Folkways Records in 1960, and there I was earnestly chirping my “Sun Valley Song” on the same disk as nineteen real folk singers, including Alan Lomax and Pete Seeger.
“The Unfortunate Rake: A Study in the Evolution of a Ballad” became a classroom classic used to illustrate how texts change as they are transmitted via oral tradition.
And you can listen to a sample of the “Sun Valley” song by clicking here.
Even though this was my sole appearance as a folksinger, I make up in longevity what I lack in numbers. The Smithsonian Institution bought out Folkways and kept the entire catalog in print. Their website offers “The Unfortunate Rake “ by “various artists” as a CD or a download.
Or you can check it out on Amazon by clicking here.
I still like to sing an occasional ski song, to myself, usually while cruising western slopes, including a few times even those at Sun Valley.
Treasure Your Ski Buddies: A Tribute
Skiing Binds Friends Together; Don’t Skip A Trip.
Great friends, great memories. At the top of Mammoth Mountain. Credit: Pat McCloskey
One of the great things about the sport of skiing is that it is a conduit for friendships. There is nothing like the anticipation of the weekly get together with friends or the ski trip with pals that you have skied with for over 40 years. There’s a buzz: the excitement, the snow reports, who has new equipment, and when and where will we all meet. The guys that I ski with every year on a March ski trip go hard. They are ex-ski racers and coaches and keep themselves in good shape and we all look forward to the annual trip together coming in to Tahoe from all over the country.
They are cherished friends, and we lost one this summer to an unexpected heart attack.
Proctor Reid was a Dartmouth ski racer back in the day and a highly educated head of a government engineering think tank in DC. Proctor always impressed me with his big strong GS turns as well as his intellect, and great sense of humor. It will be a hole for sure in our group this coming March as we toast and ski a run or two for our pal Proctor. He is pictured on the right in the blue and black jacket with all of us at the top of Mammoth with the great backdrop of the Minarets. God bless him. We miss him terribly.
Another guy in this group pictured in the back with the blue jacket is our ring leader and host Eric Durfee from Incline Village, NV. He recently cut short a trek in Nepal with his wife because of an unfortunate accident. While spreading the ashes of his in-law at the base camp at Everest, he blacked out and fell eight feet into rocks off the side of the trail. He was helicoptered to Kathmandu where he and his wife spent a week during extensive tests to determine when and if he could fly home. Fortunately, everything checked out, and they are on their way back to the states flying first class to Reno from Kathmandu. He tells us all not to worry. He will be skiing Mammoth next week. Tough old bugger.
Not being morose here and hoping to spark a little thought, life is precious. There are no guarantees and that is why it is so important to get together with friends and no better way than on a ski trip. Sure, things come up and there are always a million excuses for why we are too busy, it is a bad time, had a flat tire, or some other lame excuse. But when you make it a priority, skiing binds you all together for memories that last a lifetime. Same with the groups at your local areas. Yes, it is cold, the weather might not be optimal here in the East, but drag yourself out and be held accountable to your local group and expect the same results of laughs, great turns together and that cold IPA at the end of the day in the ski lodge.
I just had another birthday and I still ride mountain bikes at night with lights and ski as much as I can during the winter. I have to keep it going. I asked Scott Nicol of Ibis Bike fame how long he thought we would be riding and skiing at this level. He said, “ Pat, don’t even think of it. Don’t let anyone say that you are too old to do anything.” Like the saying goes, “You don’t quit skiing because you get old. You get old because you quit skiing.”
Treasure your friends. Go ski with them. And always remember—no friends on a powder day.
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