Shaken From Slumber

Someone knocked on my door early this morning. Still in a slight daze, I opened the door just a crack at first to see who it was and not let in the cold. The person on the other side saw the crack, smiled with a broad grin and then pushed his way into my home with force, giving me just enough time to jump out of the way and get ready for the onslaught. No, it wasn't my neighbors looking for free ski advice or some extra flour for their breakfast pancakes. No, it wasn't my parents, driving up to see whether I'd had some overnight epiphany about getting a "real" job with some actual financial security and a good health care plan. It wasn't my friends clad in lycra wondering if I was ready to go cycling, and it wasn't the neighborhood black bear looking for some honey. Hey Booboo. Nope, it was winter, and he's got some pretty good spring in his step for an old man.

Okemo opened for the season today, three weeks later than originally planned and with what could charitably be called "sporting" conditions. We did have some die-hard ski and ride devotees who bought lift tickets today, took the bus up to the bottom of the summit lift and made turns on the top third of the mountain before downloading the same lift back to the base. I'm certain that they had fun and I'm certainly glad we were open, but I'll wait another couple of days for conditions to improve, thank you very much. I mean seriously, I do not work for the Okemo marketing department and though I prefer to remain positive and optimistic I have no obligation to do so. Which brings me to Old Man Winter's barging into my house.

While enjoying a nice lunch with my friends from the still dormant Okemo Ski + Ride School in the Sitting Bull, our base lodge bar and restaurant, it started snowing. Hard. Very hard. And it's been snowing like that all afternoon. And it's supposed to keep up all evening. Normally, one of the things I enjoy about snowstorms is the quiet that results when fresh snow blankets the world around me. In this case, however, the constant sound of our snowmaking guns hammering out their fluffy white product is far preferable. The combination of the two things going on at once – the snow storm and the snow making – has provided a much needed lift to my spirits and those of my friends, neighbors and colleagues. When we talk about the weather in a town like Ludlow, we're not just 'talking about the weather' in the Pygmalion sense. For the first time in a long time, those conversations have some real excitement in them. I expect that by mid-week conditions will be pretty good and by next weekend we should be off to the races.

The funny part is that the storm sort of caught all of us by surprise. It's not that we hadn't been watching the forecasts with great interest and with an odd level of detail. It's just that we (which is to say I) had all been lulled into a sort of malaise of waiting, watching, kvetching, worrying and idling about with less purpose than we'd prefer. So we cracked the door open a bit this morning to see whether winter was in fact here, and he barged right in like a college roommate carrying a six-pack or a six-year-old on Christmas morning. Phew. We may have been shocked for a moment, but we sure are grateful.

Hopefully, Old Man Winter found a comfortable seat on the couch, likes his surroundings, and will stick around for a while. I'll even let him have the remote if he stays.