Clear the trails, mad skier on the loose

Being Frank, by Frank Ameduri

After today, be forewarned. Chances are, while you're sitting in the safety of your dining room, I'm strapping on a new set of boards and hitting a local trail. That's right, after something like 12 years, I'm putting on a pair of cross-country skis.

My fianc/e picked up a couple of tickets for the ski train, so I was left with little choice. "You ski, right?"

"Er, yeah. Of course."

"Well, anyway, the ski train is all about having fun. It's just a nice train ride. There's a cocktail car, and then you ski out to a glacier, have a leisurely picnic lunch and head back to the train for more fun."

It all sounds like something I'd be interested in, except the ski to the glacier bit. Actually, the last time I was on cross-countries, my leisurely lunch consisted of intense oxygen treatments a round of CPR and a bout of leg cramps that would have sent Secretariat crying home to his mother.

It's not that I don't like skiing. In fact, I like it quite a lot. It's just that I'm really not very good at it, and that's dangerous. I've done both kinds of skiing, and the results were pretty much along the same lines.

My first excursion was when I was in high school. I'd been a Southern California boy, so snow was a foreign concept to me. When I first encountered snow, in 1972, I was 10 years old, and my first response was to eat some of it. It wasn't yellow. I'd learned that much from Frank Zappa. It wasn't much in the way of good eating, either. I spent the next few years learning how to make the perfect snowball and peg someone with it, mastering the fine sport of sledding, and perfecting my snow angel technique.

Finally, as a high school freshman, some friends took me to the local hill. The thought I was pretty coordinated, so their plan was to leave me on the bunny hill while they made a couple of runs down the main hill. After a while, they figured I'd get my snow legs under me, and they'd take me up the lift for my first genuine run.

The bunny hill was equipped with a rope tow. Owing to beginners luck more than skill, I actually handled it pretty well the first time. My first bunny run was a series of small disasters, culminating with me crawling down hill after one of my skis. Not easily daunted, I headed back to the rope. About half-way up, my skis inexplicably crossed, which pretty much precluded the possibility of further forward progress. In fact, it caused my face to auger into the snow, with the rest of my body following close behind. It wasn't a big deal to me -- I'd gotten quite used to falling down during my first run. It was, however, quite an inconvenience to the family of four on the rope behind me. My sudden stop and belly flop maneuver quickly became a rousing game of "Dog Pile on the Stupid Guy." The five of us looked like a train wreck, with skis and polls sliding and tumbling down the hill.

"Nice move," the mother said. I don't think she meant it.

After gathering up my stuff, my friends thought it was time to tackle the big hill. I was too proud to tell them they were almost certainly wrong. Stepping off the lift, I somehow managed to stay upright. Unfortunately, I was not able to stay in one place. I essentially began my run, more at the strong behest of gravity than by any desire of my own. Rocketing down the main hill at skin-burning speeds, I was completely unable to turn or slow down in any other less graceful way.

"Sit down!" my friends shouted. "Sit down." Fortunately, I was able to do just that before skiing through a chain link fence that wasn't really anywhere near the places where skiers were supposed to go.

My cross country experiences were a lot like that, too. My favorite stopping maneuver for Nordic skiing was to find a tree that didn't look too menacing and sort of grab on to it, making a graceful spin-around stop. Well, actually, not all that graceful, because Nordic skis work pretty well in reverse, so I often ended up slipping backward a little ways until I plopped onto the snow.

Well, anyway, I just thought I'd let you all know that the Italian Scallion is back on the trails. Let that suffice as fair warning.

Frank Ameduri has been banned from six ski areas -- that we know of.