COVID-19, Ski Vacations, and The Kitchen Table

 

https://youtu.be/nuvcETMYcUg

“Not until you finish your homework.” “How’d the meeting go?” “You won’t believe what happened today?” “We should probably cook that broccoli tonight.”

And in a normal year, “Hey, honey, we really need to get our ski vacation figured out.”

In my mind’s eye, these conversations all take place at the kitchen table, the family inner sanctum. One parent is getting dinner ready and the other is helping with homework, feeding the toddler, maybe catching up on emails. Phones ring, plans are made, instructions given, priorities set, families reconnect, all around the kitchen table.

These kitchen table conversations also are how families plan ski vacations. Did we like where we went last year and should we go back? The so-and-so’s love being in their own condo in El Grande Western Resort for the holidays so should we talk to them and try some place new? Do the kids really need new boots, again? We really should get the winter clothes out of storage this weekend.

This year, in the age of COVID-19, those kitchen table conversations are very different. This year, it’s “Hey, honey, how do we really feel about traveling to ski this year?” Notably, it’s almost exclusively about how people feel about traveling to ski and ride.

Resorts all across the USA are rolling out operational protocols designed to keep guests safe while visiting their mountains during the pandemic. Lift capacity, lift reservations, line management, facility cleaning, face mask and social distancing requirements, food service modifications, group lesson programs – every phase of the resort experience is being adjusted to limit exposure. There are some differences in those details from place to place, but most resort plans are fundamentally similar. As I see it, however, in this environment there is no amount of operational detail that will help new or returning guests make the decision to travel and spend time in ski resorts this winter. As I’ve said, in my view it’s about how people feel about traveling to ski and ride.

Thankfully, how we feel about skiing and riding in the first place is the central reason that people make the trek to mountain towns during the winter months in the best of times. In the 2020-21 season, the way skiing and riding makes each of us feel represents one of the aspects of our normal, non-pandemic lives that we long for the most. In that way, skiing and riding, particularly as a family, simply has become more important, more evocative of what we’re missing.

Whether to travel at all is a decision each individual family must make on their own, based on their own comfort level. Still, if it helps, I do think there that are a few simple things that holiday-makers can do to ensure that their mountain vacations safely provide the sort of valued experience for which we are all longing. Planning in a little more detail and a bit further in advance will allow skiing and riding families to have safe holidays that will be the way we want and need them to feel.

To address this, I created the short informational video above that I hope will be a helpful for families trying to figure out how they can make their ski vacations easier, safer, and less stressful this winter. 

The mountains will be covered with snow this winter. The lifts will spin. The cold mountain air will invigorate us. Under our face coverings our cheeks will still be rosy and our big grins will still warm our hearts. When we’re skiing and riding, lost in the moments of exhilaration that can only come from the sports we love so much, we will momentarily be transported out of the everyday stresses of the world. During this winter of COVID-19, those moments will be all the more welcome for each of us, guests and staff alike.

I am looking forward to seeing my own guests and to meeting new ones this winter, and to making the most of our time skiing together. And if you need a hand while you’re at the kitchen table sorting through the details, just give me a call.

Maroon Bells in Aspen at the end of a beautiful autumn day

Directions to Carnegie Hall

A classic New England coastal salt marsh in summer, pronounced "sault mash".

Yesterday, I had several different and very specific alpine ski technique details in mind throughout the day. This does violate a deeply held conviction of mine that less information and a narrower focus is vastly more effective learning, better training than more and broader, but I somehow muddled through it. The various aspects of skiing that I was working through yesterday were overwhelmingly centered on the functional relationships of various body parts and that functionality’s effect on efficiency, strength and performance. Developing and maintaining that sort of functional awareness, particularly when it relates to specific muscle groups, requires a lot of repetition and few distractions. Frankly, I do enjoy that sort of training, as it’s rare for me to have the opportunity for several prolonged, uninterrupted hours of focus.

Just to be clear, yesterday I was doing landscaping. Not skiing.

One of the training opportunities I’ve always enjoyed about my “summer winter” teaching and coaching skiing in Wanaka, New Zealand is that I do not personally receive much coaching. Yes, I realize that sounds odd but I promise it’s not a non-sequitur. The lack of training received combined with the large volume of teaching hours with a great variety of people who are intermediate and beginner-level skiers provides an enormous volume of repetition of slower-moving ski turns in which fundamental concepts remain front-and-center of my mind and my awareness. I admit it, I am a terrible multi-tasker, but I can be aware of my core muscles winding up and unwinding from turn to turn, for example, while maintaining a singular focus on whatever piece of the skiing puzzle is at the center of my guests’ and my time together. My antipodean “summer winters” have been, in that odd sort of way, like my own ski teaching version of staying after basketball practice to shoot free throws. Thousands of them.

Quite obviously, in the Age of COVID, I am not in New Zealand. I am not on snow, I’ve had to somehow cobble together a living this “summer summer” in a strange new place, far from my wonderful Wanaka friends, and with an unsettling amount of uncertainty about the future. But I do wonder: will the actual absence of skiing and, frankly, the absence of ski-focused conversation actually benefit my skiing awareness in some way? The truth is, I know it will, even if it’s not as much fun as actually teaching skiing.

A major component of our instructor certification exams involves being assessed on “teaching for transfer”, which is instructor-speak for finding common ground between a guest’s non-skiing experiences and whatever specific detail of their skiing we’d like to improve or have as a focus for our time together with them. For one teaching component of their instructor exams, candidates are given scenarios describing a particular hypothetical guest, a description of their skiing, and an explanation of that guest’s goal for their lesson. It’s an exercise designed to demonstrate that we can transfer our skiing and ski teaching knowledge in a way that is understandable and relatable to a wide array of people without having to throw the book at them or completely deconstruct their skiing in order for them to evolve as skiers. Invariably, this component of the exams becomes teaching by analogy –kicking a soccer ball, boxing out in basketball, lifting heavy objects and placing them on a high shelf, feeding goldfish … As long as the non-ski activity is something that the guest understands in a meaningful way, relating to it can assist in their understanding and awareness of the movements of skiing. I do make the joke from time to time that this way of examining can lead to the mistake inexperienced instructors make that I call ‘death by a thousand analogies’, but done well it’s obviously effective. What’s interesting to me about my current off-snow predicament, is that I’m experiencing the exact opposite in real time: finding the sensations of skiing in anything, everything else I do as a way of practicing. It’s like practicing free-throws by chucking crumpled pieces of paper from my desk across the room to the trash can and hoping it works come game-time.

Kidding aside, pretty much any awareness of bodily movements and functional relationships counts from a neuromuscular practice point of view. As a practical matter, with a “summer summer” in place of my normal “summer winter” it’s simply the approach I have to take, but it does put me on the same footing as pretty much everyone else so at least I’m in good company.

Cry me a river; I’m not skiing in New Zealand this summer. Unlike New Zealand, at least while here in America people understand it when I ask them the classic question: How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice is the answer; and that's apparently true whether we’re on snow or off of it.

I need to go carry some heavy bags of topsoil from one side of a property to the other. After all, every rep counts.

Coffee with a Side of Social Justice

I am not a morning person. I do wake up very early, and I like to get to work very early in the morning, but that’s because I much prefer to have a slow-moving, easy start to my day. In addition, although I prefer to think that I am not a particularly routine-driven person, I do have a very well-established morning process. Again, I don’t have a routine because I’m neurotic (insert snicker here); I have a morning routine because without it I’d end up with orange juice in my muesli and different socks on my feet. I drink coffee with my breakfast, and it’s a very particular brand of coffee for which I’ve taken some verbal abuse over the years.

I start my day with Chock Full O’Nuts coffee. Be careful what you say next, because getting teased for my coffee of choice is one of my favorite opportunities to be smug and self-righteous.

First things first: I really do love Chock Full O’Nuts coffee, so it’s not as though I have elected hardship in order to make a philosophical point. I would if I had to, but it is genuinely excellent coffee despite it’s being inexpensive. Secondly, there’s a very particular reason that the smell and taste of Chock Full O’Nuts is what my olfactory memory lands on for what coffee should smell and taste like. When I was a little kid and my family would make the long trek down-state to visit my grandparents in New York City, I often would sneak out with either my grandmother or my grandfather to go to the coffee shop for a slice of cake or a sandwich. At that time in New York, the coffee shop was invariably one of the Chock Full O’Nuts “coffee counters” that were ubiquitous in Manhattan at that time. They were less numerous than Starbucks is today (what isn’t?!), but those coffee counters were a part of New York’s DNA and New Yorkers’ everyday lives. So, for me, this is how coffee is supposed to taste, and the fragrance of it from across my kitchen in the morning makes me happy.

To be clear, my point here is not merely that I’m nostalgic for a time long ago when my grandparents were larger than life characters in the big city. My choice of coffee runs deeper than that.

When I’m in smug coffee mode, after attempting to generate a picture in the mind of my detractors of wee-little-me sitting on a stool at the counter next to my grandfather like some Lower East Side version of a Norman Rockwell painting, I dig in further. I pull out the third-rail of childhood in New York, someone that I believed then and believe now is simply beyond criticism, reproach, or even question. Yes, I bring up Jackie Robinson. No, I’m not kidding. Years after breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball with the Brooklyn Dodgers, years after showing all of America and the world what sort of character it took to bear that burden, to bear the vitriol and viciousness of entrenched American racism alongside the hopes and dreams of so many yearning for their slice of the American Dream with equal aplomb and grace, Jackie Robinson retired from baseball and worked as an executive for … wait for it … Chock Full O’Nuts Coffee. He was the company’s Vice President and Director of Personnel. “Do you still want to make fun of my coffee?!”, I say with glee. Don’t go there. Just don’t go there. We’re talking about Jackie Robinson here.

Here’s the point: In my family, Jackie Robinson represented America the way we hoped it would be; the way we wanted it to be. Graduate from college; serve your country as an Army officer; fight injustice while proving your exceptional worth every day through hard work and tenacity; and raise a family and settle into a well-deserved career for a beloved American company while still being a strong advocate for social justice and with those two not being in conflict. I grew up really believing that this was the way it was all going to work in America – isn’t that why Jackie Robinson fought so hard? So we wouldn’t have to? There can be zero question that Number 42 played an essential role in moving our nation forward. Still, like all of my heroes, the point is not that Robinson did the work so we didn’t have to. The point is that he established a standard and shoved our society in the right direction in order that we all would pick up the banner of social justice, pick it up right where he left off, and do the same for the next generation of our fellow citizens.

Yesterday, the teams competing in the National Basketball Association playoffs determined that not playing their games was a vital way to draw attention to the numerous, horrific recent incidents and the long history that make clear that the struggle for social justice in America is not yet done. I am immensely proud of them, and of the National Basketball Players Association, the team owners, and NBA executives who stood by them. If I could, I would serve them all a cup of my favorite coffee so that they would know, metaphorically and literally, that they drink from Jackie Robinson’s cup and that, to me, they are the inheritors of Jackie Robinson’s struggle and the bearers of his mantle.

In truth, we all should be. It is not merely my morning cup of coffee; especially on days like today. It is a reminder that our work is not done in America. So up and at ‘em, clean yourself up with dignity, have a good breakfast, register to vote, and let’s all go out and make our country the sort of Republic we aspire for it to be. With the same nobility, strength, and grace as Jackie Robinson and so many others who came before us. #morethanavote

Dessert First

Crystal Mill near Marble, Colorado as a summer storm looms

My family enjoys sharing a story about my grandmother Stella ordering dessert first in restaurants. I am sure that she did it, albeit not regularly, and we all certainly remember the point she was making.

My paternal grandmother, she was the daughter of poor, Russian Jewish immigrants; she raised her family in a multigenerational house in New York surrounded by families with similar stories; she sent both her children to elite colleges and then medical school; and, as we all take pains to point out, she smoked, drank and gambled for the entire length of her life until, in a backhanded blessing, she died quickly in a car accident in her 80’s. There’s nothing unique about her story or ours but like so many of her generation of Americans, the example she set for us lives on in all of our minds and our spirit as a family. Stella was a rock of a human being, a rapier of a gin rummy player, and when she ordered dessert first it was because you never know what might happen next, so if a restaurant has good dessert we definitely should have it while we can.

When Russia invaded Crimea in 2014 with regular Russian soldiers and sailors in unmarked uniforms in a brazen violation of the Geneva Convention and a long list of other international laws (to say nothing of the sovereignty of Ukraine), my parents and I agreed that this was why my grandmother Stella ate dessert first. You just never know. We could all imagine a Ukrainian family a lot like us enjoying a meal in a nice seaside restaurant while feeling confident in the stability of their nation and then running for safety from Vladimir Putin’s “little green men” before their soufflé arrived. I’m confident that when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated in quick succession Stella felt precisely the same impulse and acted on it, feeling as though the fabric and stability of our beloved Republic was fraying and teetering enough to feel genuinely uneasy. My grandmother was not a particularly political person – she was always far more focused instead on making sure that the machinery of the family kept everyone in line, on time, and well-fed. Still, she’s been on my mind quite a bit lately, and I’ve been wondering occasionally: should I be eating dessert first?

I watched video this morning of uniformed and armed but unidentified federal personnel tear-gassing protesters in Portland, Oregon and beating medical personnel attending to injured civilians. Should I order dessert first? I watched in horror this spring as heavily armed White Supremacist “militias” stormed the Michigan Statehouse, screaming at the security personnel and then menacing the legislators working to protect the public from the worst pandemic in a century. I’ve been imagining what the response of our elected officials in Washington would have been if those storming the statehouse had been Black – would they have been described as “good people”? What if they were Jews like me and my family? Maybe I should I go get a slice of chocolate cake just in case. And that was before George Floyd and Breonna Taylor - and countless others before them - were killed by the police officers whose oath to “protect and serve” seems to ring so hollow for so many of our fellow citizens. I just watched the episode of “Finding Your Roots” on PBS, celebrated Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s excellent program, where his guests were Rep. John Lewis and Sen. Corey Booker, and remembered that Prof. Gates was arrested by white police officers in 2009 while in his own home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is exceptionally unnerving to me that being a successful and intellectual Black man relaxing in your own home is enough to arouse suspicion that a crime is in progress in Cambridge. Get me to the nearest bakery.

The question, kidding aside, is whether the current tumult in America – pandemic, anti-intellectualism, hyper-politicization of what should be a national non-partisan quest for social justice – should cause any of us citizens to have our bags packed and one foot out the door, wolfing down our pecan pie just in case? Obviously, the answer is “no”. Resoundingly. I was born on July 4^th, I had an uncle named Sam, (Stella’s brother); I’m a life-long student of American history and have dedicated substantial time and energy to the study of American political philosophy and constitutional law; and I’m going nowhere. It’s not that I think we can rest on the work of our forbearers or that we should have no fears, but I prefer to go about my everyday life as though we live in the nation to which we aspire, the Republic that we expect it to become after we apply ourselves to the difficult task of making it so. This, after all, would be the spirit to which my hero Congressman John Lewis dedicated his life.

I’ll continue to linger over my dinner for a while and then consider what I’ll eat to finish it off with a little bit of sweetness. And perhaps we’ll find some bridges to march across together afterwards, with arms linked together and love in our hearts.

Summer / Winter, or Just Summer?

A summer storm rolls in with Snowmass in view; Old Snowmass, Colorado

Ahh, summer. Darn it, summer. Ahh, home. Darn it, home.

It’s been tough watching Cardrona Alpine Resort and Treble Cone’s opening days of the Kiwi winter season from here in an American summer. This is my first actual summer since I began working in Wanaka, New Zealand for the Kiwi winter in 2007! It’s not so much Fear Of Missing Out that gives me the blues as it is that I genuinely miss my friends. I am very fortunate to have a wonderful group of people around me in Wanaka – I do not use the word “whanau” lightly; I mean it, they feel like family.

So, just to focus on the positive, here are my Top 10 Reasons Why It’s Good To Be In America This Summer/Winter instead of Wanaka, New Zealand, in no particular order:

1. Summer is terrific - abundant sunshine, no need to bundle up, wearing flip-flops outside, and my road bike finally getting a full-season. Then again, there’s nothing quite like rising up through an early winter Wanaka inversion to help us appreciate the real value of some sunshine, and the warmth of the people makes up for the cold. Oh well.

2. I get another year to get used to Treble Cone having been acquired by Cardrona and now being in the Cardrona family. After my five seasons working there, it took several winters in the warm embrace of Cardrona to recover, and now … Then again, I’ve been quietly chatting with my friends at TC about how great it would be to work together again, the place is a genuinely inspiring mountain to ski and ride, and the whole TC community deserves the same welcome I received when I switched resorts. And sunrise at Treble Cone is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. Oh well.

3. Brewed coffee, on demand. Sorry, no qualifier there. Kiwi’s are oddly proud of their barista-made espresso coffee, even though none of us foreigners can figure out why. Still, I do really love grumbling about the Kiwi espresso coffee with the other foreign staff while in the locker room – it’s like a sport unto itself. Oh well.

4. I do not have to put up with Cardrona Carol grabbing handfuls of my rear when she sees me around the Cardrona base area. Then again, it comes from a heartfelt place, it’s usually accompanied by a world class hug, the woman is an absolute gem and a legend, and she gives so much love and attention to me and everyone else, guests and staff, that it’s genuinely amazing. And I may actually enjoy it. And I miss her. Oh well.

5. I do not have to worry about keeping the Wanaka Ski Club members happy. I’m lucky to have coached their locals’ programs at both Cardrona and TC over the years, and the club members are a big part of how I’ve become so happily anchored in the wider community, not just the resorts. Wait, I don’t get to coach my master’s program?!  I love coaching them! Darn it! Oh well.

6. I do not have to mortgage my life to buy avocados or bell peppers in the supermarket; I don’t have to budget the additional half-hour of time in the supermarket for the many friends I encounter there; and I can spend the summer working on my screenplay for a Miami Vice spoof about smuggling avocados to the South Island from the Bay of Plenty in a cigarette boat. Then again, slowing it all down, taking the time to stroll to town to shop, and enjoying the feeling of being a part of such a great community while shopping is one of the things about Wanaka that I genuinely enjoy. Oh well.

7. I do not have to agree with Rachael Milner – my manager - that, yes, her uber-stylish, red, onesie ski suit she wears on retro day still fits and looks good. Then again, she really does rock it, she so obviously feels great when she dusts it off and wears it to work that the grin on her face lights up the place, and her participation alongside the staff in all the silliness is one of many reasons it’s great to work at Cardrona. And she’d lay down in traffic for the staff, me included. Darn it, Rach. Oh well.

8. I do not have to explain about all things Kiwi to the new staff from dozens of countries. Cardrona, in a normal season, includes staff from all over the world and I’ve become a bit of a “great explainer” over the years. Pot-luck pizza dinners are a common occurrence and it’s typical that they take on the appearance of a model United Nations. Those dinners are where we hash out the vagaries of winter bach living (think drafty, damp, uninsulated Kiwi summer holiday homes). Then again, my English friend Dave makes truly great pizza dough, my Finnish friend Hanne runs the kitchen like a Swiss clock with a smile on her face, my friends are always charitable in their professed enjoyment of my sauce, the Italians always appreciate the effort, and the evenings are always light, fun, and a welcome break from our busy working lives. Oh well.

9. When I’m home, I do not get stopped in my tracks by gorgeous views every time I step outside to go anywhere. I spend my time in America in some pretty beautiful places – the Rocky Mountains in Aspen, Colorado, the Green Mountains of Vermont, the New England seacoast – but there really is nothing quite like the view over SoHo basin towards the Southern Alps, or from Treble Cone over the top of Lake Wanaka, or from the Mitre 10 parking lot, along the Outlet Track, the Clutha River, Glendhu Bay … Ugh. Oh well.

10. My staying at home in America help keeps my friends, colleagues, and all Kiwis safer, and that’s the most important factor this year by a long shot. Over the thirteen winters I’ve spent working in Wanaka, the place and its people have become home and I miss it and them. They are a part of my life and my family. If staying home in America for a summer means I am doing my part to keep them and all New Zealanders safer, so be it.

Kidding aside, I am proudly American – I was born on July 4^th and I actually have an Uncle Sam, dearly departed. I am proud intellectually, culturally, and personally. Critically, remaining home this summer allows me to feel and participate on a deep and meaningful level in our national discourse during this turbulent and difficult time. That is a welcome challenge, and a deeply felt blessing for which I am very grateful. #blacklivesmatter

"That's Interesting! Tell Me About That!"

Taking in the big picture at Snowmass on April 18, 2020

I can see Gordon Robbins’s face as I write this. In my mind’s eye he’s sitting over his usual cup of soup at lunch in the Okemo base lodge, well into his 80’s, chatting away with all manner of instructors but particularly young ones. Suddenly, something, someone’s comment commands his complete attention and everything else on the planet ceases to exist.

It happened regularly, and would have been easy to overlook. Mid-conversation, when someone would say something new, something outside his own experience or from a fresh perspective, Gordon would hunch over as though making himself smaller, stare at the person who made the comment while extending his hands out and rolling his fingers towards himself in come-here mode, and he’d say, smiling, “Ah, now that’s interesting! Tell me about that!”. The other person felt it: they would have the total and complete attention and enthusiasm of the astonishingly accomplished and supremely sophisticated man in front of them, and he’d love every instant.

Gordon Robbins was no ordinary snow sports pro, and he certainly was no ordinary human being. He was far better than that. His long, varied, international, and endlessly interesting life defies easy description, and his role in snow sports was merely the last chapter. Gordon was tremendously influential in the sport of snowboarding and in snowboard instruction from the very beginning. His impact is difficult to overstate: countless professionals who continue to drive the sport forward and guide the teaching and coaching of it to this day have their own tales of Gordon’s intellect, his nature, and his many gifts to them. Still, none of that, nor any of his other spectacular adventures and long and singularly interesting life had any effect on those cafeteria conversations. Every person of every sort, every place, every idea, every experience, was a moment of joy and the potential for learning not to be missed for Gordon.

To see the look on the face of some young, awkward, slightly quirky instructor when this Gordon effect happened was like watching the sun rise above the horizon. His joy became theirs and they would both be transported. Joyful curiosity and selfless generosity were his hallmarks. Those character traits continue to inform my view, and they certainly are not limited to my dear departed friend Gordon.

There’s a vexing question for all of us in the snow sports teaching business: Can we train ordinary coaches and teachers to make them great, or is there something in great coaches, some innate, intangible quality that they possess that cannot be trained or learned? Particularly since the last Interski – the quadrennial international congress of snow sports associations - our national instructor teams here in America have been very focused on the skills necessary to be effective teachers. Communication skills, empathy, friendliness, and other skills can be trained in the same way that good customer or guest service can be trained. But the question persists: is there something else, something deeper, something woven into the DNA of great instructors? Is it character?

Gordon Robbins has been on my mind quite a bit lately as I consider this question, and Gordon’s example proves ever instructive. Ironically, they’re traits of an approach to learning, but they do manifest themselves in the way in which people teach. They form a common theme that unifies great leaders, scientists, managers, teachers and coaches. As described, the two character traits that have been on my mind are each really amalgamations of two things: The first is a joyful curiosity. The second is selfless generosity.

On a more operational level, the coaches that have had the most direct impact on my day-to-day teaching and on my development through the ranks of instructors have in common a particular way of working with me. Knowing how my mind works, my favorite go-to coaches all understand that simply telling me how to do something, how to explain it and what words to use was a recipe for the loss of my attention and, frankly, my respect. The better response, the one that keeps me focused and guides me to a better understanding and more effective performance is to ask how I’d approach a problem and then say “OK, walk me through it”. Using the same hand motions as Gordon, my coaches Barb, Alison, Jean, Deb, Biff, and a couple of Bobs all take this approach with me: each would say “OK, walk me through it”, and each would suggest how to tweak, tailor or approach the substance or my process in a way that would make it more effective. Their approach with me was always selfless in its generosity, joyful in its curiosity, and tough on me in the way I needed. I learn as much from the way in which they handle me as I do from anything they’ve told or showed me over the years. I am lucky to call them all my friends, and their lessons continue to bear fruit – on the hill in my day-to-day work and in my thinking about my craft and my career. It’s as though they all sit on my shoulder, Jiminy Cricket style, guiding me through and keeping me honest.

Joyful curiosity and selfless generosity: I believe that these are not traits that can be engineered, taught, faked, fudged or measured, though we should keep trying. What I do know is that these character traits can be identified and encouraged. When we find an inkling of them in people, some little spark, we can draw it out of instructors with genuine interest and care just like Gordon would, hunched over, focused and gesturing with enthusiasm for more of what they have to offer.

Smite Be Something To It

The aspen trees need no social distance. April 8 in Aspen, Colorado.

I’ve been struggling with something very specific recently. No, I’m not talking about social distancing, figuring out my local market’s delivery schedule so I can get fresh vegetables, or deciding whether to say something to the unbelievably selfish people in my community who seem to not get it. Those are certainly challenges related to my present quandary, but they’re not my central point here.

At the moment, I am struggling with conjugating a verb. It’s not a word we use very often, and it’s definitely a wrinkle of translating biblical text and concepts into modern English as we experience the COVID-19 pandemic. And I find it entertaining - the verb, that is, and not the pandemic. I am struggling to conjugate the past and conditional tenses of the verb "to smite".

Conjugating “to smite” is made a little tougher given that the only beings that we commonly think of who could have smote (see what I mean?!) are pretty lofty. My informal view without an exhaustive survey is that Moses, King David, and King Solomon could all have smotten (?) people for offenses. Lohengrin, Shiva, and Zeus certainly possessed the ability to smite someone. Those of us whose religiosity is squarely in the Five Books of Moses and are therefore more accustomed to a fire-and-brimstone, plagues-upon-Egypt relationship with our G-d understand the possibility of being both “smote” and “smitten” by our Eternal Ruler at the same time. The questions to which I seek answers are whether we were smotted; would we have been smott had we not washed our hands; when was the last time you were smotten? Is someone who has been smotted considered smut? It’s vexing.

Although from the same root word, “smitten” has an entirely different connotation in the modern context. Somehow being bowled over by a stunning beauty seems more enjoyable than being struck down by lightening for eating bacon or making matzo balls with butter. Need I say more on that subject?!

One of the philosophical and even theological aspects of the current state of the world that I do genuinely find interesting is that the changes we are all working hard to make in our everyday lives, our societal behavior, are for the benefit of all. Success or failure of social distancing and the like is determined on the basis of the collective outcome, not merely whether we ourselves survive and remain healthy. Yes, there have been and will continue to be a dizzying daily array of heart wrenching individual tragedies that I have no intention of minimizing. Still, when this is all over and we’re back to business as usual we’ll need to consider how each of our behavior contributed to the health and welfare of our community, our nation, our society, and the world in which we live.

My friend Jiri and I had one of our classic intellectual conversations yesterday about theological conflicts between competing belief systems within the same religions - those who believe in individual versus collective salvation. We agreed that COVID-19 necessarily grounds he and I in the collective view. I am not saying that those who fail to social distance or do whatever else we should be doing to “flatten the curve” of the spread of the new coronavirus will be smotten, smited, smot … I don’t think that they’ll be struck by lightning, turned into pillars of salt, hit by a falling satellite, or crushed in a trash compactor. I do believe, however, that those members of our communities who fail to act in our collective best interests will have shown the rest of us their true nature.

The many belief systems that I have studied – my own and others – all include some sort of judgement of how we’re doing (or how we did) as people. I do not personally possess the ability (or the desire) to smite someone, and I do not sit in judgement in any sort of official or ecclesiastical way. I do, however get to choose the people with whom I spend my time. This pandemic is unlike anything we've seen for generations, and I reserve the right to use what I see as a litmus test of character and not invite people to my table when we all can gather for matzo ball soup, or brisket, or a cup of coffee, or take some Temerity laps, or a bike ride …

I am confident that the overwhelming majority of people in the communities where I live will choose to apply themselves towards the welfare of all mankind. Let me be clear, my matzo ball soup is pretty good, but it clearly is lower on the priority list than the greater good of society.

Peeking Through My Fingers

Peeking out at Pyramid Peak

I do not like scary movies. Truthfully, I never have. Still, at least in scary movies the soundtrack typically clues us in to what’s going to happen and, generally speaking, the plot twists are predictable. The theme music to Jaws made clear that the swimmers were not exactly about to play with dolphins or be surrounded by a school of colorful tropical fish.

Thankfully, scary movies also follow a familiar formula. I mean, if you haven’t seen “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” for a good send-up of scary movies, it’s worth it. Do not go into the woods to see what that noise was. Do not get a ride home from school with the creepy dude in the van. Do not knock on the door of the trapper’s cabin in the deep, dark forest to ask for directions. Definitely, under no circumstances, do not ever open the closet door while the dangerous music is playing. Yep, maybe just leave the closet door closed under all circumstances.

The problem for dealing with frightening scenarios once we leave the movie theatre is that we have no soundtrack. At the moment, I could really use one because I have genuinely no idea what is going to happen next. And that not knowing is the most challenging aspect of our current situation.

Similarly, the analyst in me likes to break down problems into the things I know, and the things I do not know. My anxiety about our current circumstances stem, as always, from what I do not know. I do not know how long; how bad; or how difficult. I certainly do not know where or when. I do not know what the solutions may be for our community, our country, or our planet. I do not know if I can trust our national leaders to steer us through the crisis or to tell us the truth (that’s the polite version). On a very specific subject, the total lack of preparedness of our country and its leaders and the virtual absence of testing means that we do not know who may have the virus or how many may have it, and there will not be enough available medical care for any members of our communities who do have it (or those that don't and still need care). Colorado is a state of 5.6 million people but the entire state has the ability to test a mere 167 people each day for COVID-19 (according to the Pitkin County Manager), and receiving test results currently takes a week – this is not a recipe for answering questions or alleviating anxiety.

It’s like the riddles kids like to tell on ski lifts: you and your friends or family are in a room with twenty doors; one door is an exit to the outside and safety; ten doors are to closets with monsters in them, but just one of the monsters can kill you; five doors have your friends and family in them, but you can only look inside from six feet away or else someone may die; and the remaining four doors have roulette games going on that allow you to buy essentials when you win, get sick when you lose, or both. Cue “Jaws” theme music here. The solution to the riddle, for now, is to sit tight and wait for more information and for the inevitable developments to occur. In my case, as I do in scary movies, I cover my eyes with my hand but I peek through my fingers because I really do want to know even if it's frightening.

In actuality, peeking through our fingers is vitally important. If I were so scared that I just couldn’t peek, imagine what I’d be missing. I’ve been going for hikes and long walks through the area; I’m keeping in touch with the people who are important to me; and I definitely am making the point to appreciate where I am and how fortunate I am to be here. As bad as this is and will get, the worst result will be if we fail to keep what’s important in perspective and that we will have our eyes so covered that when it’s all over we won’t be able to fully appreciate our return to a normal life.

So go ahead, peek through your fingers. Because one door is the closet with a monster but the other may provide a view of the beautiful mountains outside. Just wash your hands and keep your distance. Please.

Aspen Highlands on Sunday, March 15; first day of our closing.

Looking over a quiet Aspen on Monday, March 16

Captain Kirk and the Ski Industry

Things were looking up on a recent Aspen morning

For purposes of modern jurisprudence, I am the creator of a theory known as “Star Trek Diversity”. It’s very well known as a tool of workplace analysis – well, OK, it’s gotten a lot of giggles and approving nods among my friends and family over the years. Justifiably, Star Trek is highly regarded for having had the first interracial kiss on American television and for the relatively egalitarian way in which the show’s characters interacted. The crew of the Starship Enterprise was remarkably diverse for its time - or was it? The principle of Star Trek Diversity is that the crew of the Starship Enterprise actually represented a benign, albeit thorough-going, exercise in stereotyping. Think about it: the weapons officers and navigators were Japanese and Russian; the chief engineer was a Scottish ship builder; the medical officer was a drunk Irish doctor; the science guy had no emotions; the nurse was tall and blonde; a black woman answered the phones; and the captain of the ship was the white protestant man in charge. My running joke is that had there been a ship’s bursar, jeweler or dentist, it would have been a Jew.


Although I do mean the concept of Star Trek Diversity to be funny, it’s also intended to be a warning. That warning, subtle though it is when I kid around about it, is also vitally important to the ski industry and to those of us who work in it. We have a diversity gap: gender, racial, ethnic, and religious diversity in the ski industry simply lags behind our nation generally, both among our staff and our guests. The real problem is that many of the people working in the industry look around and see people of all stripes, so to speak. “There are lots of women who work here,” in traditionally female roles. “We have a lot of Latinos on the resort staff,” especially in the kitchens. “I actually know a couple of black ski instructors,” who I think I met once. And Jews? I actually know the other two full-cert mishpocha in the Eastern Division of PSIA. There’s no news here, of course, and we are making progress as an industry.


Thankfully, in Aspen Snowmass I work for a remarkably gifted group of supervisors and managers. Many of them happen to be women, each of whom is exceptionally qualified, highly effective at their work, and a pleasure to work with and for. None would be mistaken for someone who achieved their status because of what they are instead of who and how good they are. They all received, keep, and succeed at their roles in the company on the merits. It’s wonderful, and it’s rare. In addition, I am incredibly fortunate to have been mentored through my ski career by several long-time coaches and instructors who spent equal amounts of time banging their heads against the glass gender ceiling as they did working hard to help me progress as a pro. Unfortunately, there are too many people in our industry – men and women - who have been elevated to positions of responsibility for which they are not qualified or skilled because of what they are, and because of how what they are makes senior people feel about themselves. A bit like James T. Kirk with the tall white nurse and the black communications officer.


Progress is slow and progress is hard. If we keep our eyes on what’s really important and focus on each incremental step, progress can be meaningful. In the end of the analysis, it’s helpful to remember that Lieutenant Uhura was a Starfleet officer at a time when African American women had few professional role models in the media. I did some reading about the character to shore up some details and found out that the actress who played the Lieutenant, Nichelle Nichols, had planned to leave the show after its first season but changed her mind after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. dissuaded her. Yes, that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.! Apparently, Dr. King was a fan of Ms. Nichols and of the show and told her “You are our image of where we’re going, you’re 300 years from now … You are our inspiration.” Star Trek was the only television show that Dr. Martin Luther King and Corretta King let their young children watch in large part because of her example.


We have a long way to go and I do stand by my theory of Star Trek Diversity as a warning. Still, if Dr. King gained confidence from Lieutenant Uhura, so can I. Besides, Lieutenant Uhura kicked some serious ass and never hesitated to put the rest of the crew in their place, and I definitely need managers like that to keep me in line.