I love winter

By Ryan White
Colchester High School, Grade 10

“Are we there yet?” was becoming my trademark. Given the amount of time I had to utilize that particular phrase on this trip, I could have patented it, sued for it, won the lawsuit, and had a press conference detailing my ingenious maneuvers in the courtroom that led to my victory. I was in a car, which was going up a hill at a pace not far from the maximum speed of a tree shrew. The hill was only one in a series of many that were steadily increasing our altitude relative to sea level and taking us (my dad and me) closer to the ski resort.
Frustrated, I proffered what I thought was a helpful suggestion. “Maybe if we went a bit faster we’d be able to get there quicker.”
“No, Jimmy, we’re going to admire the majestic mountains, the high hills, and the rippling rivers,” my dad replied with an air of dignity, temporarily forgetting that he didn’t have a son named Jimmy.
“My name’s Ryan,” I corrected him, smiling.
Still looking out his window, he replied, “Sure, sure, Jimmy, whatever you say,” just a tad absentmindedly.
Two presidential terms later, my dad shouted the two words I had wanted to hear for the whole trip. “We’re here!” exclaimed my dad.
We both fumbled through our backpacks looking for our ski passes, which were the type with the official looking name (in our case, “Lincoln White”, or “Ryan White”), surrounded by the perfect white powder that you can only see in ski magazines.
Walking to the lodge, I began to get chilly. That day it was -7 degrees out. Unless you are reading this from inside one of those vault freezers they have in large restaurants, let me tell you how cold -7 degrees is: very. For the first few steps outside in weather such as this, it is startlingly and satisfyingly invigorating. But that period passes quickly. By the time I got inside, my fingers, toes and various facial protuberances were throbbing with a gentle but insistent ache, and I noticed, by way of pinching my cheek as hard as I could, that my skin had become impervious to any pain. I had been transformed into a sort of frozen Superman. I was interested to see how long I could tolerate this sort of climate and the answer was not long. I don’t mean that after 30 seconds I thought, “Gracious, it is getting rather nippy, I suppose I should be heading in soon.” I mean that after 30 seconds I would have given up my firstborn in order to get inside.

I think that every one of those ski rental people had a personal vendetta against anybody named Ryan or Lincoln. When they introduced themselves as Ricky or Bobby or Mary Jane, I could tell by the way they smiled at me that I was unwelcome. Those smiles said, “I don’t really like you, or even respect you as a sentient and mildly intelligent human being, I’m just working here to save enough money to buy a new iPod.” It was almost like they didn’t want people to ski there, or maybe they work on commission, and how much they get paid depends on how many people don’t rent skis.
However, I am a reasonable person, I admit that my level of anger was unwarranted, and I offer my sincerest apologies to everyone involved. I want to skip right over this part, but I do need to offer my gratitude to say that the man was very understanding about his dog, all things considered, and that the janitor would have saved us all a lot of trouble if he had left the alarm systems off during the day.

Endowed with a sense of accomplishment because we had finally gotten our skis, we made the foolish decision to start the day at the top of the mountain. The easiest way down from the top of the mountain was an ice-riddled blue diamond.
I made it to the lift okay (I only fell 37 times!), and getting on the lift is like riding a bicycle: you fall every time until you learn to do it right. But it wasn’t until we got off the lift at the top of the mountain that the problems started.
“You remember how to ski?” my dad asked.
“Of course I do, my wonderful and glorious father,” I assured him. “I have often been mistaken for Bode Miller, both on the slopes and off.”
And I do know how to ski, honestly. It’s just that my legs, after years of inactivity, got a little overexcited when confronted with so much snow. As soon as I slid onto the icy snow, they wanted to visit every mound and mogul of the hill, from lots of different directions. After they finally flew out from under me, I landed on my butt with such a wallop that my raisin toast from that morning was temporarily regurgitated up into my mouth, until I swallowed it back down.
“Wow!” said my surprised butt as I clambered back to my feet. “That snow is packed hard.”
“Hey, let ME see,” cried my head and instantly down I went again.
And so it went for the next half hour, with various extremities of my body-shoulders, chin, nose, one or two of the more adventurous internal organs-hurling themselves at the ground in a spirit of investigation. I gathered quite a crowd while my body was carrying out its scientific experiments. Eventually, when all of my parts were satisfied with the assumption that the ground was hard, I slid down the mountain on my butt, who had started it all, and for a blanket and a cup of hot cocoa. I knew I would be back soon.