Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Boomerang

In the late 70s, just before a ski trip to Aspen, my Rossignol skis were stolen out of our garage in Illinois.  My parents replaced the stolen skis for me with a pair of Dynastar 195 cm Dynasofts.  I skied those skis for almost 20 years.

When I moved to Aspen in 1999, I immediately replaced my outdated skis with a pair of the newfangled "parabolic" skis.  The Dynastars languished in the gear shed for a while, finally making their way to the dumpster 7 or 8 years ago.

Fast forward to this past Sunday.  I'm hanging out at the Aspen Highlands Closing Day Party taking in the crazy scene.  All sorts of people in costumes and crazy get ups.  I keep seeing one girl with a shot ski wandering around.

A shot ski?  That's a ski with a number of shot glasses attached to it.  The idea is that you line people up and they all simultaneously do shots by tipping the ski.  

About the fourth or fifth time I see the girl with the shot ski, I take a good look at the ski.  I casually mention to my friend that I used to ski a ski just like that one.  Mine was about that long but it had my name on it (that's what we did in Illinois when we bought skis.  I got the stolen Rossignols back because of just that little detail).  So I wander closer to the girl with the shot ski and . . .

It's got my name on it.  I say to the girl, "That's my old ski."  And after carding me (no lie), calling all her friends over, taking pictures and figuring out where the ski has been for the past many years (in the Aspen Valley Ski & Snowboard Club gear room), she generously gave it to me. (Not at all what I expected.)

Mom & Dad, aren't you thrilled to see what's become of the ski you bought me?

4 comments:

flask said...

gives me goosebumps...

Steve-O said...

That's a great ski story.

rabiel said...

That's great!!! But where is the other one?? Last time we got them back there were two!! But no bindings, remember?? Or didn't they give them back to you this time....?

IamMBB said...

Just one ski, sans binding. She told me the binding was really hard to get off, though . . .