Another weekend at the ski run

I remembered to take my camera today when I picked up Emily. I wanted to take pictures of the pipe stem legged preschoolers in fluorescent ski pants, learning on the bunny hill. They have finally graduated to coming down from the top of the hill, and they come down like a snaking dance line.

But, I parked in the wrong place.

So, I snapped folks coming down the “big” hill.

Not much color, pretty boring, until the fellows with white crosses crested the hill and brought a laden sled down. I asked Emily later if it was practice. She didn't know,  but there had been three that day. She works first shift.

My local fire district covers the ski resort, and I told her of some accidents I knew of from the years I clerked for them. The district runs on a shoe string, there being just under two hundred taxable properties in the township and real estate the only tax available in a township.

Steam could come out both my ears when the EMS team transported some young skier and then had the ambulance bill go unpaid for want of insurance. We’re talking a gainfully employed person who could afford ski equipment, or its rental, clothing, tickets. A smart phone with a ski app, no doubt, and expected the ambulance ride to be free. No budget excess to pay for that unexpected consequence.

Emily helps people on the lifts, helps them off, helps them stand up, stops them from doing stupid things.  She does not have the authority to “clip a ticket,” but may say to a youngster who looks as if he will jump off the lift to retrieve a dropped pole, “If you jump, I’ll have your ticket clipped!” Then she retrieves the pole, sends it up on the first empty chair and tells her squad leader to “keep an eye on that one.”

Emily’s thinking she’d like to learn to ski. I told her about the young woman in my department who took a lesson, went down the bunny hill, caught her ski, suffered a spiral fracture of one of those long leg bones. The bone was plated, the bone was pinned, she underwent electrical stimulation treatments or some such thing. For the eighteen months she continued to work she was generally in a walking cast. I wonder what became of her.

But, Emily wants to learn to ski. Told her it might be a fun thing for President’s day, her next day off school.

And when the sled was down the hill it appears the fellows with white crosses were on a training run.