A SLIPPERY SLOPE

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (03-04-21)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

     It's a jungle out there- you can strain your elbow playing golf, and you can sprain your knee playing basketball. You can pull your groin playing tennis, or engaging in sports in the comfort of your own home that you thought were relatively safe. But just about any recreational activity these days can land you in the hospital with a deadly virus, and blaming it on your teammates will be less productive than usual.

     One of the safest sports you can engage in during a pandemic is skiing. You're outdoors, you're covered from head to toe, and you control how far away you are from others on the slope. If you're close enough to give me covid on a ski slope, it probably means that you're about to collide into me and cause me serious bodily harm anyway. If it looks like I'm about to collide into you, don't panic- you still have plenty of time to get your affairs in order because I generally go faster on the way up the mountain than on the way down. Anyway, if you have so many affairs that it's hard to keep them in order, you've probably got other things to worry about.

     We traveled to lovely Vernon, New Jersey where, no doubt against state covid protocols, they had sold the mountain to full capacity, but were operating the ski lifts at only half capacity, adhering to random enforcement of health safety measures. So you had about 35 minutes to kill on the lift line, not distanced from others and with haphazard mask enforcement. Those same slipshod policies forbade you from eating or smoking on the line and internet reception was spotty, so if you didn't bring a crossword puzzle or a deck of cards you were out of luck.

     Any covid germs with the kind of work ethic that could penetrate my complicated security system have my undying respect, at least I hope it's undying. I'm wearing long underwear, short underwear, medium underwear, a hoodie, a jacket, goggles, gloves and a scarf. I'm dressed to the nines, and if I had brought a decent necktie I would have worn that too. The most persevering cooties would have to stow away beforehand or procure a VIP pass to get access to me on the ski slopes. I saw people on the lift line who went even farther than I did. Several teenagers had on a turtle-shaped butt protector that looked so incredibly dumb that I had to wonder how many times you would have to fall to justify wearing one, and the number I came up with was 378. One guy was wearing a covid mask shaped like a huge Rip Van Winkle beard, which looked just as annoying as a regular beard and kept getting caught in his jacket zipper.

     You could only ride the gondola with the people you came with, so if you came with someone who has covid, at least be thankful that they didn't also have the bubonic plague. That policy saved me from having to make small talk with strangers, which I can never do normally. I talk about the weather, and how nice it is that it's sunny, or how nice it is that it's not sunny, depending on if it's sunny or not. If it's a slow lift and I get down to a discussion of isotherms and the dew point, the guy next to me is looking around for a second set of ear muffs.

     On the way up the mountain I take a gander at the black diamond slope. I'll warm up on the blue slope then give it a try. What they need is something between a blue square and a black diamond, maybe a purple trapezoid. I'm pretty sure I can handle it, as long as all the inexperienced weekend warriors don't snowplow all the powder off of the top. There might be moguls which could cut down on my speed, so maybe I'll put it off until the beginners even them out. I tell my wife I'm going to give it a try before it gets too icy. Looks like the sun is coming out, so maybe some of that ice will melt. I'll crush it after lunch. We bring our lunch along so we don't have to waste valuable time on the cafeteria line when we could be wasting it on the lift line. After lunch I take another look at the black diamond, but it seems a little crowded. With my skills it should be a piece of cake, but the conversation about it abruptly ends when I almost fall on the the hill at the end of the ski lift, which is harder than it looks.