Who first taught you to ski? Or at least taught you the basics to get you started?
In my case it was my father, George Morrill. On the hill across from our house, he showed me how to sidestep and herringbone up the small slope. To come back down he’d put my skis between his and we’d snowplow back down the hill. Of course, eventually I would snowplow down without his aid.
My father also learned to ski on that same hill where he taught me. I’m not sure who taught him those basics, but I certainly regret not having asked him that question. I do know that he was a kid when he learned. He and his buddies would graduate from the small hill to some of the trails in the White Mountain National Forest behind their houses. Years later my cousin and I would ski those same trails, hiking up and skiing down.
My father continued to be interested in skiing as an adult. One of the first things he did after marrying my mother was to outfit both of them with new skis and fashionable skiwear. The skis were from Montgomery Ward with bear-trap bindings and no steel edges. I became very familiar with those skis since I would end up using them whenever I broke my own skis which seemed to be a regular occurrence.
My mother had never skied so my father tried to teach her the basics. Apparently that didn’t go as well for her as it did for me. When she described how my father tried to teach her to snowplow with her skis between his, she said, “We both fell on my face!”
World War II interrupted my father’s skiing. He was in the Army, but not the 10th Mountain Division, so skiing didn’t enter into it. He was part of the reinforcements that fought their way across Europe after D-Day. In the early stages of the Battle of the Bulge, he was wounded and earned a Purple Heart.
After the war, I arrived on the scene and my mother was off-the-hook for having to ski with my father.
Despite the fact that I’ve described my father as a skier, he would not visit a lift-served ski area until he reached retirement age! A retired friend of my father was trying to talk my father into skiing with him. I bought my father skis and boots. After all the skis and boots they had bought me, it was the least I could do!
As I mentioned last week, my father really liked Black Mountain. His friend Neil who had talked my father into skiing, preferred Wildcat. But my father liked the smaller, less challenging, less busy Black Mountain. I skied with him there and was surprised at his transformation. I always thought of him as shy and quiet. But put him on skis and he’d talk to anybody! Young, old, men, women, my father was a chatterbox on the slopes.
My father’s lift-served skiing only lasted until he had his knees replaced when he was 75. He passed away at age 92.
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