Thirty years ago, right about now

The Broncos were going to the Super Bowl. He was going to Denver, each for the first time. His mom decked him out in 'Orange Crush' orange and hid his Vikings’ purple. But, he wasn't moving to Denver because of the Broncos. He wasn't 'moving' to Denver at all.

He became a skier when Jim's name changed to Dad and his changed to Williams. His new dad grew up skiing in Minnesota and introduced it to his new family, a wife and young son, her only child. They took to it heartily. The little guy gripped the rope-tows for all he was worth in his mother’s old oversized mittens. He made little uphill progress as the frozen tow slipped through his frozen mitts. He’d hang on mightily as the T-bar went up around his seven year old neck and shoulders, but never let go, riding proudly next to his dad. The first and only dad he would ever know. Sometimes he cried looking down the intermediate steeps of Lower Brewer. But he learned to ski quickly enough. He beamed with inspiration as he watched his dad effortlessly ski off the ledge into Last Will. Then he would race down Zigzag to watch him come out the bottom. Years later, he would pay his dad the ultimate compliment by changing places with him. But, much as he enjoyed it, he wasn't going out to Colorado to ski.

All he really cared about in high school was his girlfriend, Yvette, cars, art, partying, and skiing. It would be his Nova, the fifth car he owned between ages 15 and 18 that would get him to Colorado. Not that he drove it there. Yvette was a black haired beauty looking like a woman faster than the other girls and he was quite shocked when his friends told him she wanted to go out with him. But she did. They were a tight item almost all through high school. They broke up for the last time halfway through their junior year. He promptly became a senior and graduated a year early. All he really cared about was his car, art, partying and skiing.

With his broken Nova in the garage for the winter, he drove a $25.00 Chevelle. He blew the drive shaft one winter day with a carload of friends on the frozen beach road. He couldn't afford the $20.00 replacement so he junked it in the same salvage yard that held the remains of his first three cars. His first car, the T-bird, was a '68 and he spent the better part of his 15th year getting it unstuck . . . in his driveway. He pulled the black bucket seats, made a couch and junked the $50.00, 5000 pound beast. He shag orange carpeted the entire inside of his next car, everything, visors, dashes, door panels, ceiling and, of course, the floor. The twenty dollar Radio Shack tape deck sounded amazing. Pink Floyd, Yes, Moody Blues, Genesis, The Fireside Theater, Aerosmith, Beatles, Led Zeppelin and, embarrassingly, R.E.O. Speed Wagon kept the Plymouth rocking all through its short life. Unlike the T-Bird, he actually drove the Belvedere. He blew the engine on North Ave. He junked it. The next car set him back $250.00. It was by far the most expensive set of wheels he had owned to date. But, driving down the wrong side of the road one night on purpose, led inevitably to driving down the wrong side of the ditch on purpose. That led to hitting a side road broadside, not on purpose, launching it and fortunately not hurting any of the requisite carload of friends. The Chevy II didn't steer so well after that night. He junked it.

Hitch-hiking twenty miles one way to work sucks. Hitch-hiking twenty miles one way, to work from eleven at night to seven a.m., sucks. Hitch-hiking twenty miles one way, to work eleven to seven, in the winter, in Western New York, sucks. Leaving at nine to walk to the corner to start hitch-hiking twenty miles one way, to work from eleven to seven pumping gas for $2.65 an hour sucks too. But, after the Chevelle died, that’s what he did.

Most roads are connected web-like to a multitude of other roads. Otherwise, why would you be driving on one? It's fair to say that the very reason people drive on most roads is to get to some other road. Like most roads, North Ave. was connected to a world of other roads. But, North Ave. also had an end, and not an arbitrary name change end, or a T intersection end, it physically and abruptly ended at the lake, as all roads that lead to any of the Great Lakes must. Granted, Lake Ontario is the smallest Great Lake. The least 'great,' I guess. But, you still couldn't see across it. They didn't play on it as kids. It might as well have been an ocean. It was the polluted northern limit of their known world. In fact, there was a different country on the other side. That’s a big concept for a little kid. It was an immense dangerous repository in the age of acid rain. No matter where they went, they always knew where the lake was. Even in Rochester or sixty miles away skiing at Swain, they knew which way was north. Which way was up. It was instinctual.

He grew up one mile from that lake. Basically, he was hitch-hiking from the proverbial end of the road. He had a mile's worth of traffic that very occasionally came off the Parkway onto North Ave to even try to get a ride from. When he eventually did get picked up, at the furthest, they were going to Hilton, five miles. At least then, he had a village's worth of traffic instead of a mile's worth. But still, that sucks.

October's pumpkins froze as the November nights hurried to become December nights. The mercury got short on the thermometers like a cold old man shivering in the dark. Traffic thinned like blood that time of year, that time of night. The Nova sat static in the garage, not running and in need of money. The young owner of five cars in three years stood on the side of the road, contemplating its vastness, freezing in need of a ride.

He might have only had 19 Marlboros in his hard-pack. There might have only been 7 ponies in his Miller 8 pack. His gas tank and wallet might have always been on E. But, he managed to do a couple things right. He was smart enough to, A. graduate a year early and, B. realize as he stood there, frozen under the streetlight on North Ave. barely mobile enough to move his arm, hand and thumb to the rare car, trying to get somewhere he didn't want to go, that there must be some other way somewhere to make a go at this brand new post high school life. If this was the end all, well, a person might just go ahead and end it all.

It was his idea to go to Texas. But, in his eighteen year old wisdom, he insisted on two rules. The first rule being that they have three hundred dollars each, the second being that they had to have their own three hundred each. No Mark loaning Tab a hundred to make up the difference, to be paid back when they were all rolling in it down in Texas. It was to be the four of them. Mark, Mark, Tab and him. As the time to depart neared, it indeed turned out as he had feared. Mark would be loaning Tab a hundred so they would each have three hundred. And, by the way, they would be towing Mark's Camaro behind the Bonneville so he could put a new engine in it down there in Texas once they were rolling in dough. He could appreciate the sentiment. That's why he was inspired to go somewhere in the first place, to make enough money to fix up his Nova. But, he stood his ground. He kept to the idea of two rules. So, Mark, Mark and Tab went without him. In fact, it had been their going away party the night he had gone ditch driving and trashed his third car, the Chevy II.

His dad worked at Kodak, 'The Great Yellow Mother'. So did his mom. Kodak had been strictly Rochester for its entire hundred year existence. But, along about '75, they opened a factory in Fort Collins. His dad's friend, Steve White, and many others had transferred out there. Steve White and his wife came home for Christmas, Christmas '77. Inexplicably, they brought a Denver Post to his dad's house when they visited. Equally unexplainable, the son saw it, picked it up and went to the help wanted pages. Absolutely unexpectedly, he saw page upon page of help wanted ads. Loading dock help wanted, no experience necessary, $5.00 per hour! Columns full of these greeted his growing grin and churning brain, inventing a brand new idea on the spot. Denver, he'd go to Denver, $5.00 an hour being almost twice what he was making at Hess. It wouldn't take long to save enough money to return and fix up the Nova.

He wasn't going to Colorado because of the Broncos. He didn't move to Colorado to ski. The Broncos (Donkeys) lost; being the first of four Super Bowls that they would eventually lose. They were the first team to tie his former favorite team, the Vikings, for the most lost Super Bowls. The team closest to his hometown, the Buffalo Bills, would join that dubious crowd soon after. To this day, they have each lost four Super Bowls.

He was an eighteen year old in that Irish bar in Denver watching the Broncos lose, all swathed in orange. Colorado may have lost but it is undeniable that he won by going to Colorado.

Through a dirty, tinted, fifty-five-mile-per-hour window, he caught a first-light glimpse of mountains. Pink tinged and gleaming, they, unbeknownst to him, lodged themselves firmly in his subconscious. But, buildings quickly barged in and tightened up around him like a front line, another city. This city was different though. If, for no other reason than the fact that this was the one printed on his one way ticket.

Feeling like a tooth that had been trying to get out of a mouth for a long time, he exited that bus for the last time after three days straight. He vowed then and there that he would hitch-hike before he would do that again. He got no further than the terminal before he was 'befriended'. He would always remember his new friend's first words to him. "Man, how you doing? At least somebody is friendly around here." The new friend said, "Where you staying?" knowing full well that this kid had no idea where he was 'staying'. They got a room at the Y.M.C.A. and, in the morning, the new friend was gone with about a hundred of his three hundred dollars and the white braided ski sweater that his parents had given him for Christmas. He wasn't going to Colorado to ski but he was a skier and he was going to Colorado. This was the second day in a row that his life changed forever. This was the day that he made the long distance call home, quite likely the first long distance call he had ever initiated. His mom sounded so very far away. And she was. His tears went down and he could hear hers. The buildings towered over him menacingly, leaning hard on him but providing no warmth or welcome. But then he focused so intently on his mother's voice that all peripheral movements, sounds, etc. raced away into the deepest distance and joined everything else that had ever been familiar to him. He didn't notice. Just as he had not noticed his friends recede in high school when he devoted himself totally to Yvette. When they broke up, he noticed. He found himself a loner where he had once been very popular. He sought refuge in the library and 'pretended' to read books. That's why he gave his student counselor the ultimatum. “You have two choices.” he told her. “You can either do what ever you need to do to make me a senior . . . or not. But, either way I'm not going to be here next year.”

Both his parents gave him their best fifteen hundred miles away encouragement. They talked for a long time. He didn’t want to hang up. He knew that regardless of their expressed love and devotion, once they disconnected, he would feel more alone than before he had called. And that was the most alone he had ever felt. He was right. He had been in Denver a few days by this time and didn’t much care for it. He hadn’t actually applied for any one of all those jobs in all those columns. He was a country kid. What the hell was a loading dock anyway? With a newspaper in hand, he returned to his room at the Y. He counted his money and it didn’t take very long.

He visited the help-wanted pages again and then he saw it, ‘Ski resort jobs available, Keystone Colorado’. Without hesitation he packed, checked out and took the trek back to the bus station. Yes, they did have tickets to Keystone, Colorado. He bought one one-way. The bus stopped, he stepped off into the mountains and a new and never imagined better life, but not into a town.
Keystone in January of 1978 was not so big, especially from Highway Six. He went into the only building he could see and applied for a job. “Yes, we have plenty of jobs. But, do you have a place to live?” “Ah, well, I just got off the bus a half hour ago.” The interviewer suppressed a smile and suggested, “Well, if you find a place, come back and we will put you to work.” The young traveler responded, “Okay, how about if I come back tomorrow?” This time the interviewer smiled broadly and repeated that he should come back once he had found a place to live. The meeting concluded. They shook hands amiably and the young man prepared to depart. At the door, as an afterthought he asked, “Oh yeah, one more question. Is there a town around here?” He was directed down the hill toward Dillon.

Walking down the road at nine thousand feet for the first time in his life, combined with the clearest, bluest, driest air he had ever experienced, left him breathless and exhilarated. He would remember this walk for the rest of his life. With mountains on all four sides, he was firmly in the mountains. He had heard talk in Denver about being in the mountains, but Denver was near the mountains, not in the mountains. Here it was all different and there was no going back. He wondered what the man had meant when he had said, ‘if you find a place to live.’ How do you find a place to live? He never had to do that before. Even when it was just him and his mom, they always had a place to live. Then his dad came along and swooshed them both off to the big house in the country that he lived in ‘til he left home.

He didn’t really know how far this Dillon place was and it was the most beautiful day he had ever seen, so he didn’t hitch-hike. He just enjoyed walking in the Rocky Mountains that January day. A little brown building with a big brown sign came into view, rising slowly above the snow banks like a curious animal. It was a Tourist Information Center. He thought maybe they could tell him how to find a place to live. Besides, it was the only structure he had seen so far. It was certainly an unusual question for the friendly lady working the counter. But she didn’t miss a beat and was on the phone before she barely answered him. “Okay, do you know where the Interstate is?” she asked him. “Sorry, no, I don’t.” She had just talked to a friend of hers and proceeded to give him instructions to get to the trailer down in Silverthorne that he could move into that day if he’d like to. He hitched to Silverthorne, met his new landlady, moved in and returned to Keystone the next day asking about those jobs just like he said he would. Nobody told him it was supposed to be hard to find a place to live, so it wasn’t. Ignorance is bliss.

There were two house trailers butted up to each other making an L shape. Each one was divided into three little hovels with two beds, a bath and a small stove in a paneled square of a room. He noticed immediately that his new home was # 1A. You have to get your sources of pride wherever you can find them when you’re eighteen and just starting out. It was fifty dollars a week. That seemed like a lot. Hell, in New York, he could buy a car for fifty dollars. Nevertheless, he was happy to have it and started his employment at Keystone a couple days later.

Keystone was owned by Ralston Purina in those days. He started his climb up the corporate ladder at the bottom rung. He was a parking lot attendant. He quickly deduced that to be a successful parking lot attendant, you had to be there when the cars were. That coincided almost directly with the times a person would otherwise be skiing. During the mid-day break, he and his coworkers would grab garbage bags and hike a little ways up the slopes and slide back down in them. You couldn’t steer them or stop them (much like some of his cars) and if you put the bag on just right, you couldn’t see either. This provided some funny entertainment. The skiers didn’t necessarily think it was all that funny, hence the incentive to cover your face for the descent. The last thing you needed was some skier noticing you as that kid that was flying down the hill in a garbage bag and now was the afternoon parking lot attendant. That was all fine and good, but growing up as a skier, he knew the difference between garbage bag sliding and skiing. Seeking out different employment that would provide ski time proved to be his next and final step up the rungs of the corporate ladder. Although some might dismiss his move as a step down a rung, he felt otherwise. He eagerly transferred from parking lot attendant to . . . bus washer. Not bus driver, but bus washer. Of necessity, you wash buses when skiers are not on them. That would, of course, be at night. He skied every day. There was the ’64 International named Lurch with a split axle transmission. The washing bay was a tight squeeze and he bent a mirror or two that winter. There was a lot of snow that season. He was skiing in the Colorado Rockies. He was in the mountains. He was out of Denver. His dreams hadn’t come true, but only because he had never thought to dream this dream.

Fifty dollars a week was steep. He needed a roommate. Of course he didn’t know how to get a roommate either. He did not go back to the Tourist Information Center, although it wasn’t such a crazy idea. He hitch hiked back and forth from Silverthorne to Keystone. Every day, he walked under the I-70 overpass heading to and from work. An old white Ford pulled over one day as he headed home. They struck up a conversation. The guy that picked him up was done with Colorado. The Interstate was five miles down the road and he was going to get on the east bound on ramp right then and go home to Morton, Illinois. He’d been looking for a place to live for the last couple of weeks and had been sleeping in his car. He didn’t get on the Interstate. He moved in that day. The new roommate had most of his possessions stored down in Denver and went for them the next day. He would admit weeks later that since he was about to move in with a guy from New York, he expected everything to be gone when he returned. Luckily for him, Hilton, New York is a far cry, figuratively and literally from New York, New York.

He needed another job to augment the bus washing gig. His new roommate got a job at the Ramada Inn and heard that they were hiring at the Village Inn Pancake House next door. He went there looking for a job, expecting a dishwasher position, (apparently he was good at washing things) they asked him if he would like to be a waiter. He was the only guy on the floor. It was him and the waitresses. He skied every day. He washed buses a couple nights a week for a ski pass. He waited tables most other nights, for tips, meals, a paycheck and flirting.

A gang of young friends quickly formed as often seems to be the case at that age. They skied hard, partied hard, worked hard and actually could save some money. He found out the hard way that you had to be twenty one to drink in Colorado. He tried to buy a Coors at the bar near the house, the O.D.I. The bartender took one look at his New York state driver’s license, stating that he was eighteen, (drinking age in New York at the time) and escorted him to the door. His new roommate bought beer and they drank at home. Seeing as how they had an entire third of a standard size mobile home to spread out in, they got another roommate and a dog, a big dog. When his Mom and Aunt came out from Hilton to visit, they stayed with them in the trailer. He made sure his Mom saw the # 1A. He wanted her to be proud of him. She was.

Spring suddenly neared and the ski season would be ending soon. So would their jobs. Everything was a new adventure to him, including all those records by all those musicians he had never heard of that his new roommate owned. R.E.O. was quickly leaving in their Speed Wagon. He was singing to Bonnie Raitt’s latest release ‘Give It Up’ when suddenly his new roommate burst through the door in a rush. With the music still cranked, he was given one minute to decide. “Do you want to go to Jamaica with me and the rest of the gang for a week for a hundred dollars? The clock is ticking.” He didn’t know what a Jamaica was but could see his new roommate’s excitement and so said yes with twenty five seconds to spare. A couple of the girls in the gang had been spending the last few summers working in California. They promised that if they came to California with them after Jamaica, they could get jobs for the summer.

He had never flown on a commercial airliner before. As soon as the ski season ended, they moved out of the trailer and traveled. The first time he flew was a Sunday. He flew the next two Sundays too. He discovered that you could spend your money on airline tickets instead of, say, carburetors and chrome wheels. He called his dad in April and said, “Dad, I’m going to this place called Jamaica for a week with my new friends and then I’m moving to this place called Yosemite in California with them. And you can just get rid of that car.” That’s how his 1969 Nova S.S. with the Hurst four speed, traction bars, chrome rear wheels, black bucket seats and a Holley 650 ‘double pumper’ carburetor mounted on a chrome high-rise manifold, supported by a 396 cubic inch engine that barely fit under the hood, under the hood got him to Colorado.

He owned skis back home. He hadn’t taken them to Colorado. Like I said, he wasn’t moving to Colorado to ski.