Thinking of Robinson and Rickey

American Lake in Aspen, Colorado

My father is a lifelong Brooklyn Dodgers fan. Although I am not and instead respond to Yankees pin stripes in the same way that a young zebra does to its mother’s stripes, the pantheon of Brooklyn’s heroes informs my world view. This past weekend like so many summer weekends, strolling to downtown Basalt, shopping for produce in the farmers’ market and bumping into friends and colleagues there crystalized an idea that had been on my mind increasingly over the last couple of weeks. As I moved among the vegetable stalls and tried in vain to avoid the local bakeries, I recalled that Dodgers players typically lived in Brooklyn and were part of their neighborhoods – shopping for groceries, having a yarn with the school kids playing marbles or stickball in the streets, and generally being members of the tight-knit communities they represented when playing at Ebbets Field and around the nation. Like all subjects Dodgers, this brought to mind Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey.

As a quick reminder, Branch Rickey was the General Manager of the Dodgers who brought Jackie Robinson to the team in 1945. When Rickey joined the Dodgers in 1943 he was already highly regarded as an innovative baseball scout and tactician, and he made clear to the Dodgers that identifying and signing players from the Negro Leagues to break the color barrier in baseball was a priority. Robinson was his first choice for reasons including a now well-understood, long-ago proven and exceptionally rare combination of athletic prowess and personal character. After two years in the Dodgers’ Minor League affiliates, Robinson went on to start his first Major League game in April of 1947, making him the first African-American to play in the Majors.

In August of 1945, Rickey called Robinson into his office for a conversation that has been mythologized in print and on film and that has achieved true legendary status – in sport and, more so, in our society. After being asked to turn the other cheek to the inevitable abuse he was to receive, Robinson asked Rickey if he was looking for a black man who was afraid to fight back. Rickey then famously explained that he was looking for a player “with guts enough not to fight back”. Rickey then signed Robinson to a contract with the Dodgers, assuring him that desegregating baseball was something the team would do as an organization, together.

Over the last few weeks, the conventional and unconventional press has spent a great deal of column-width parsing out and analyzing Vice President Kamala Harris’s approach to her racial identity and ethnicity. That is, she has let others discuss the groundbreaking nature of her potential presidency from that perspective, choosing instead to focus on her vision for America, the tone and approach she will take as President, and the policies she will pursue. She has a job to do and while she isn’t ducking questions when posed to her directly, she is not dwelling on the subject of the place her presidency would have in American history. What occurred to me this weekend while perambulating with a bag full of fresh produce is that she is taking a cue from Jackie Robinson: Vice President Harris is focusing on playing ball and winning games with and for the American people, retaining her remarkable grace and sense of humor in the face of some truly ugly comments and criticism from those that oppose her.

To be clear, Jackie Robinson was not mute on the subject of race or civil rights generally in America. I believe that he and Branch Rickey simply understood that his performance on the field while enduring abuse of a nature and extent that is difficult to fathom was the most important contribution he could make. I do not in any way mean for this to be a criticism of those athletes whose active and essential role in the civil rights and women’s movements were more vocal than his – Muhammed Ali, Billie Jean King, Jim Brown, and Kareem Abdul Jabbar immediately come to mind. Whether those remarkable athletes who used their influence in American culture to move our society forward could have done so without Robinson’s having broken the barrier in the way he did is a question that is more interesting than important to me – Jackie was the first, he did so with aplomb and an indefatigable nobility, and we are all the better for it.

In my world view, given my own family and baseball provenance, comparing anyone to Jackie Robinson requires treading carefully. In this moment I do so deliberately. I don’t know if perhaps President Biden had a quiet chat with Vice President Harris about what she could expect; perhaps it was President Obama whose own experience may be the best guidepost. Perhaps it is simply the examples provided those icons of our Civil Rights heroes with whom she may have had some personal experience that are guiding her – Congressman John Louis, for example. I just hope that when the digital age version of the chants and jeers from the outfield stands test her mettle, the Vice President knows that she can depend on myself and millions of other Americans to pick up the mantle of that other Dodger great Pee Wee Reese, put our arm around her shoulder and face the hate and the resistance to a better future, together.

The Correspondence of Cattle

Recent view of The Jungfrau from The Land of Happy Cows

Exceptional cheese comes from happy cows. Over the last few years, a constant reminder of that essential fact has been the ringing of cowbells as the background music of my travels hiking in Europe. Most recently, I spent a week in the stunning mountain village of Mürren in the Bernese Oberlandt of Switzerland. While there, I was struck by the total absence of milk barns even though cheese-making is such an iconic and essential part of the local economy. Add to that my overwrought angst about the orange-colored cheddar here in Colorado, and I’ve been thinking about how cows in the Alps might interact with their overseas cousins if given the opportunity. Imagine how a happy Swiss cow might write a letter …

---------------------------

 

Greta Holstein

c/o Mürren Beef SA

Mürren

Switzerland

August 23, 2024

VIA AIR MAIL / PAR AVION

Akiko Wagyu
c/o 5k Ranch Cattle Co
Steamboat, Colorado

Dearest Akiko:

I was delighted to receive your letter, all those weeks ago. I apologize for taking so long to respond – with the summer having been so rainy, the grazing in our highest altitude pastures has been exceptional so we’ve all been out of touch more than we like. If it’s any consolation, the clover has been more plentiful and tastier than usual, so we are all quite fat and happy. Judging from the looks on the faces of the visitors to the mountain hut nearby, it would seem that the milk, cheese and butter we are all providing has been a tribute to our wonderful mountain environment. Thankfully, at least all that high altitude walking keeps us fit even if I am a little soft around the udders these days.

I was delighted to hear that you also have had great grazing weather over there. I do worry from time to time that the arid climate in Colorado can make life challenging for you and your herd. One of the great joys for us in summer is the variety in our daily meadow buffets and I am grateful to know that you and yours similarly aren’t spending these months relegated to only eating hay from bales wrapped in plastic. My children romanticize the life you all must lead out there, cowboys and all - my youngest Heidi in particular derives great joy from my reading your wonderful letters out loud to her in my best American accent.

I would like your opinion about something. Last week, the ladies and I had a conversation with a chatty old sheep dog who was visiting the village with her humans. They were from Wisconsin and the dog was curious about how it is that we dairy cows in Switzerland don’t spend time in a milk shed. As you can imagine, we needed her to explain to us what she meant and we were all quite shocked to learn that some American dairy cows spend their lifetimes inside enormous buildings chained to machines that milk them, day in and day out. Can this possibly be true? It’s such a disturbing thought. How can their milk possibly even taste good? I mean, we may all be deaf from the incessant clanging of the bells around our necks, but at least we are mostly free to roam, and I have to believe that it is part of what makes our Swiss cheese so delicious and keeps our humans so happy. I couldn’t help but wonder if this bovine bondage explains why their humans feel the need to dye their cheese yellow – such an awful state of affairs. I didn’t sleep well for a week afterwards. Please let me know your thoughts and experience on the subject. I may also reach out to Aunt Martha in Vermont – she always has valuable perspective on what makes us cows happy.

We’re all now back in lower pastures just in time to start getting ready for the big end-of-summer traditional cow parade through the streets of the village. Heidi will be participating for the first time and is making a fuss about her fancy new outfit for the occasion – it’s all so very Swiss! I for one will be happy to just fit in mine from last year. Everyone’s expecting a big crowd of tourists and the village has been getting better with their social media exposure, so we’re all anxious to look our best and make an impression. I’ll send you some photos from the event; hopefully the weather will hold.

Please give your lovely bull Clyde my best. Regards also to those kind farmers the Gibsons – such a nice family and they certainly appreciate and know how to take care of their Wagyu. I hope that the grasses are tall and plentiful, the sun is forgiving, and your hooves find only soft ground.

All my love, dear cousin.

Greta

Dr. Freud? Paging Dr. Sigmund Freud!

Maroon Bells from Hayden Peak in Snowmass

I drive a Subaru. If that just made the person next to you snicker, continue reading because the rest of this blog post is about them. If that made you snicker, well, what you do next is entirely up to you.

I am not really a “car guy”. I do not have the desire, bandwidth, or financial wherewithal to care much about what my car says about me, my personal style, my political leanings, or my career choices. I like a car that gets me where I need to go in all weather conditions without fail; that doesn’t break down much and isn’t expensive to fix when it does; and that is reasonably parsimonious on petroleum. My current Subaru has saved my life more than once and delivered me from one end of Vermont to the other in some seriously treacherous ice storms. Yes, in Vermont we have ice storms, as in ice falling from the sky and accumulating on the ground, the trees, the roads, our vehicles, on ourselves, and everything else. My Subaru may actually have snickered at the ice storms.

My vehicle has about 120,000 miles on it. I recently asked the head of service at the nearest Subaru dealer what I should expect will go wrong with my car in the next year, just so I’m ready. His response: nothing, my car is in great shape and should last a long while. I promptly took the vehicle to the local super duper car wash to give it the all-over shine that it deserves.

Since moving to Basalt, Colorado, I’ve spent the lions share of my working life commuting “up valley” to Aspen and Snowmass for work. In my Subaru. Famously, the one road in and out of the Roaring Fork Valley, Colorado Highway 82, is exceptionally busy with traffic that often is shockingly bad. The drive from my home to the Aspen gondola, for example, is 18 miles and in summer can take as long as 75 minutes, and that’s when the highway is not under construction. What this means is that I have plenty of time to watch and consider people’s behavior while driving. In fairness, the nature of the cost of living and housing in particular in the Roaring Fork Valley means that the workforce that makes the world turn here overwhelmingly drives to Aspen from towns far afield, and the result is the terrible congestion and some pretty aggressive driving by people anxious to start the clock on their work day.

Sympathetic though I may be to my fellow commuters, I do wonder whether it is my choice of vehicle that causes people to drive particularly aggressively near and around me. Is there something about a Subaru (especially one with a VT sticker on it) that implicates the self-esteem or self-confidence of people who choose to drive very large, gas guzzling vehicles? Does it hurt the ego of a gentleman driving a very large, super-duty, white pickup truck to be “stuck” behind my supremely practical vehicle even when I am driving at the same speed as everyone in my lane? Do people who spend far too much money on finicky, fancy SUV’s with custom license plates that live in their garages in Aspen during the 45 weeks a year when they are not in residence feel that having to navigate around my Subaru in traffic is somehow beneath them? Insert the etymology of the word ‘pretentious’ here.

Although there are plenty of moments when I just extend my middle finger as these people find salvation in their aggression, I do wonder about conducting an experiment. I’d like to drive different vehicles on the same busy route, at the same time of day, on the same day of the week, at the same speed, and in the same lane, and see if it would make a difference to the way people respond to me. To be clear, I have spent a lot of time driving around the valley this summer in a very large super-duty diesel pickup truck for work, so though my speculation is based on anecdotal experience there definitely is a basis to the hypothesis.

More entertaining than scientific, I occasionally daydream about putting up a big sign on Highway 82 that says “Freudian Therapy, next exit”. I also consider creating an Instagram page that functions like a wall of shame for people whose conduct while driving on 82 is a sign of the demise of Western Civilization: “This week’s winners of the Roaring Fork Freudian Therapy Associates gift certificates are [drumroll, please] … the gentleman in the white Ford F-150 Raptor with Texas license plate LVEGUNS and the woman driving the baby blue Bently Bentayga with Colorado license plate ASPEN-22. You can pick up your winnings at the Pitkin County Sherrif’s office and then schedule your therapy appointment.”

Ok, ok. There are some very nice, very considerate people who get stuck in traffic with me. Some of them are even courteous enough to maintain a respectable distance and let others in-and-out when the highway merges into one lane near the Aspen airport. And occasionally, one of those people will waive just like a Vermonter when I let them in front of me. Hmm, maybe they are Vermonters; or perhaps Maine.

I need new tires for my car. My plan is to make it through the scorching hot summer on my current Baldinis and buy new hoops in the fall before the first snow. And when I do, I’ll be confident that my Subaru will get me to-and-from the mountains safely and easily. And if there are people around me who really need therapy to deal with the impact that driving in my vicinity has on their delicate psyches, maybe I’ll just extend my finger in my mind only. Then again …

A Game of Telephone

Looking towards Colorado's Gore Range in the July sunshine

“Telephone”. Perhaps kids still play that simplest communication game. Sit in a line or a circle, one person whispers a phrase to the one seated next to them, something simple. Each passes it in succession until the last person has heard ‘it’ and then says ‘it’ out loud to the whole group. What began as “I took the dog for a walk in the morning,” becomes “I voted for Harry Truman” or “My cousin made the best matzo ball soup” or something to that effect. Always entertaining and frequently hilarious. This simplest of games and the lessons it provides have been on my mind quite a lot lately.

Years ago, realizing that watching or even listening to the news would raise my blood pressure, I decided to only read and not watch or listen to the news. I am deliberate and careful about the publications I read and they include a variety of newspapers, making sure to read both right- and politically left-leaning sources. I am careful to read news and not commentary until, that is, I make the overt decision to move from news to commentary.

Telephone the game has been on my mind lately because I have developed a habit while reading the news: when I am reading a story that begins with “as reported in such-and-such” or “according to some-other-news-source”, I stop and find that original piece of reporting. This means that I read news that is actually prepared by the people who did the reporting and it strips out an awful lot of flotsam and jetsam, providing me with a clear understanding of what actually has happened in the world. For clarity, I do not consider stories about social media posting or reactions to social media posting to be newsworthy or worthy of any of my time whatsoever.

My point here is not that I am so wonderful. I am open to the possibility that this selectivity of mine may indicate that I am prematurely a grumpy old man and that I have an old-fashioned idea of how to learn about and be aware of the world. I am 100% OK with both of those ideas and I may even embrace them. More importantly, this process of carefully selecting the information I read does leave me feeling a bit as though I am watching the rest of the world play Telephone.

My zealotry for original reporting goes beyond the news and extends to original source material. Get ready, here’s where I get really smug. Tell me what you think the original intent of one of our nation’s foundational documents was and I will make sure you’ve read what our founders actually wrote. In recent weeks I have re-read what Madison thought about the separation of church and state when he wrote the text of the Constitution; I have re-read Federalist 26 about the Second Amendment; and have gone back to one of my all-time faves: George Washington’s wonderful and inspirational letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island (then and now housed in Newport’s Tauro Synagogue – a true gem of a landmark that definitely is worth a trip). Just to balance this all out, I also re-read Benjamin Franklin’s 1781 essay on the benefits of farting because, well, it’s Franklin and reading it may have burnished my grumpy old man credentials.

Regrettably, far too many Americans ascribe fanciful beliefs to the founders of our nation that bear no relation to what those scholarly visionaries actually said, wrote, or believed. The game of Telephone those citizens play when they hear something convenient to their own condition and palatable for their own perspective simply takes the place of actual learning. My own smugness notwithstanding, this gives me serious agita. It’s not clear whether the problem is societal myopia, a congenital lack of intellectual curiosity, poor educational standards, or simply the laziness of people who prefer to be led by the loudest or most aggressive voices in the room. I suspect that it would fall on deaf ears to explain to many of my fellow Americans that the principles on which our system of government was founded drew heavily from the writings of leading 17^th and 18^th century radical French and English political philosophers in addition to the works of the great Greek authors delineating the principles first attributable to Athenian democracy. To be clear, I do not expect to hear anyone running for office in 2024 to be quoting Montesquieu, Locke or Plato. It’s a shame. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, and so many of the others camped out in Independence Hall in 1787 knew and explicitly considered the work of those authors. Our Constitution simply was the first great expression of those radical ideas synthesized together and put into practice – hence the expression the “American Experiment”.

Enough already, I’ll rein it back and get to the point. There is nothing wrong with a person taking a position – political or otherwise – because it is in their best interest, whether that interest is economic, religious, social, or psychological. Just admit it when you do. Please. It is unflattering and unproductive for anyone to take a position and then make up some fictional rationale that sounds like it might be based on facts that may have been communicated by someone in the media who heard it from someone else in our public life who may seem authoritative because of their apparent confidence in the espoused non-fact. That’s a game of Telephone and there is a reason children play that game as a lesson in ineffective communication.

Read. Ask clarifying and challenging questions and seek out the answers. Be curious, very curious. Read some more. Go to the sources for a more complete understanding. And when the person before you whispers in your ear, repeat it back to them and ask yet more questions so that you’re not the one being told “walk the dog” and hearing “Harry Truman” or “matzo ball soup”. Then, as we all should, go for a walk and contemplate. And maybe, just maybe, our world will become a better place for all of us.

When not writing satire about flatulence, Franklin said: “Being ignorant is not so much a shame as being unwilling to learn.” (Poor Richard Improved, Philadelphia 1755). Speaking of contemplation, please pardon me as I head outside and into the mountain air for the remainder of the afternoon.

The Quest for Lunch Greatness

The Prossliner Schwaige near Compatsch

Yesterday, as often is the case in my summer season (summer being defined as any season other than winter), lunch consisted of eating a sandwich that I’d made the evening before with one hand while moving around a job site. This isn’t a problem, it’s just the nature of things, but it also may be the reason that I went home and put the finishing touches on a vacation that I’ve been planning. On vacation, I do not stand up to eat lunch. I sit. It’s just a question of where I sit and for how long.

I do love a great outdoor café, sitting and watching the world go by in unhurried fashion. In Basalt, Colorado, I live a ten minute stroll from a couple of cafés, my favorite of which is in a small, old brick building with a patio that is just the right size, with umbrellas that are just the right size, where the tables are separated from the sidewalk by a short wrought iron fence and an explosion of newly blossoming flowers in a garden bed that also is just the right size. I do really like to sit there; and then, after a while, I stroll home.

There is something undoubtedly luxurious about lunch. Dinner is supposed to have a bit of ceremony and when we envision breaking bread with friends and family, it’s dinner that is in each of our mind’s eye. Maybe that’s precisely why a leisurely, unhurried lunch in a great spot is so special – it is an extra treat, different from what we can do in the workaday world.

For anyone who doubts my lunching bona fides, in the last couple of years since the COVID pandemic ended and I swan-dived back into the joys of travel, lunch has been a pivotal component of my mountain adventures. I am not kidding. While hiking in the Dolomites, for example, I like to plan my next day’s excursion based on where I’d like to have lunch, which réfuge, on what mountain pass. I have had some terrific food in restaurants in the past few years but there is no question that the best meals have been lunches in far flung places with exceptional views where I had to earn my calories with the effort I put in to get there.

Rifugio di Fanes in San Vigilio di Marebbe (at 2060m) had spinach spaetzle that was an otherworldly experience, and that was before the traditional buckwheat cake with raspberry filling. Of course, the three-hour uphill slog in a driving rain may have affected my view, but that lunch transported me to another level of existence. Utia da Rit (at 2000m) provided stunning gnocchi Bolognese. Ooh, and then there was the polenta al funghi at the Schlern Haus (at 2457m) – words fail me. The Schultzhaus Mahlknechthütte  (at 2054m) had wonderful speckknödelsuppe that I enjoyed in great company – I’ll tell you the story some other time; it’s a good one. Each of those places is unique, is authentic in its atmosphere, and sincere in its welcome to me and all others who venture so far to enjoy their hospitality. I’d happily return to any one of them, but for now there are more places to see and eat, more lunch spots that will be the pin on a map for a day’s adventure.

Returning home from a long day of work yesterday with a lunch that was delicious but only slightly more than a mere source of nutrition and energy, I fully committed to my next lunch spots with abandon. I’ll be going back to the Alps this summer to spend time exploring among legendary peaks. Although some of the possible hikes on my agenda are justifiably famous, it’ll be the plans for lunch that determine where I go each day. Fortified with a wonderful breakfast and exceptional coffee, I’ll lace up my shoes and head out in the cool morning mountain air knowing that the sights, sounds, and smells of the places I’ll wander will be incomparable, and that a great meal, a memorable stop for lunch will greet me precisely when I would value some moments of contemplation and rest. Nourishing is the experience I seek, and daydreaming about it already sustains me. I can’t wait.

Clay from the Riverbank

Old Town Square in Prague, from a 2015 visit.

I’ve been thinking about a golem.

The legendary golem that I have in my mind is a huge creature, immensely strong but slightly awkward with only vague features. In the classic way, he has the Hebrew word emét (אֶמֶת, meaning “truth”) inscribed on his forehead. Of the numerous golems in Jewish folklore, the one on my mind is the Prague golem conjured from the clay banks of the Vltava River in Prague in the 16th century by Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel. The Prague golem’s purpose was to protect the ghetto from pogroms, expulsion or slaughter by the Holy Roman Emperor. According to the legend, Rabbi Loew eventually demobilized the golem and stored his body in the attic of the still-standing Old New Synagogue in the Prague ghetto where he could be restored in the event the Jewish community again had need of his protection. Though the golem has had many different purposes in the various stories through the ages, in my imagination he is as close to a Jewish superhero as we’ve had, with my apologies to Moses.

The golem has been on my mind since early October. Following the shocking barbarism perpetrated by Hamas militants on civilian Israelis on October 7, I spent a significant amount of time explaining to well-meaning gentile friends the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the greater issues of the place of State of Israel in the modern Middle East, the history of the modern State of Israel, how it is that an otherwise unapologetically patriotic third generation American can feel a meaningful attachment to another nation so far away from home and so different from our own, and what my personal feelings are about all of the foregoing. In truth, the process of exploring my own feelings about Israel and the events on and since October 7 has been a valuable one, including a fair bit of catharsis, inner conflict, and uncertainty in the way that thoroughgoing introspection should provide.

My feelings about the existence of the State of Israel are as simple as my feelings about the nature and actions of the Israeli government are complex. I believe the State of Isarel to be a miracle, a blessing to my people, and it is a tremendous source of pride for me as a Jew. And no, that is not an endorsement of any particular action, attitude, or policy. Since the Roman conquest of Judea, Jews have relied on the vicissitudes of non-Jewish sovereign rulers for protection, permission to conduct business, to practice our religion, to express ourselves as a people, and frequently for the continuation of our very existence. The State of Isarel exists now despite significant overt and covert attempts by its neighbors and the British Empire to kill it in the cradle in 1947 and numerous attempts to wash it into the sea over the decades, and thanks to several truly stunning military victories against what should have been overwhelming force. The fact that a modern Jewish nation doesn’t have to ask permission or depend on the whims of a non-Jewish overlord to defend itself and has done so repeatedly through the entirety of its existence is a stunning state of affairs for the Jewish people. My heart swells.

For this reason, woven so firmly through my being, I bristle when gentiles tell me or anyone else what Isarel should or shouldn’t do. For the first time in the post-diaspora world, Jews in Israel, though free to take advice from their allies and those who support them, have precisely zero need to ask anyone else’s permission to do or not do anything. When a gentile expresses dismay at the actions of the Israeli military or its political leaders, I long to tell them that their own complicity throughout history is effectively a total abdication of any right they may have had to influence policy in or by the State of Israel, and I suspect Arabs feel the same way. To be clear, again, this is not an endorsement of Israeli actions or policy; it is an expression of a visceral and cerebral desire to stop the noise from the gentile world about what the State of Israel should and shouldn’t be doing.

Any gentile who tries to explain why shouting “from the river to the sea” isn’t a grossly antisemitic action endorsing the premeditated, shockingly horrific actions of Hamas in their desire to slaughter Jews and wipe them from the earth will get a lecture from me about their own history before I turn on my heels and disregard their views as entirely worthless. I will continue to be conflicted, challenged and made uncomfortable by the actions of the Israeli state, and I will discuss all of it and work to influence it for the better and more humane among people who do not advocate for my or my people’s slaughter.

Whether or not the body of the golem actually lies in the attic of the Old New Synagogue in Prague, the idea of its presence is informative as I consider my own feelings. Someday, perhaps we will have the need to conjure him; but not today. Today we have a modern Jewish nation state that can protect itself from the most evil of wrongdoers and secure its own future. I can only hope, after so many centuries, that Israel uses that power for the good of our people and of humanity generally. As an American, I continue to have faith that I can be a Jew and also be secure in my place in this society despite the recent groundswell of antisemitism here. Here in America, in a sense, we are the golem.

As we say in synagogue, may the State of Israel be a light to the nations. And may its people, its neighbors and all humankind see the way forward to a future of peace of love.

Existentialists Among Us

It’s like raking leaves in a wind storm. “I’m pretty sure I’ve already moved that particular leaf at least twice” I think to myself, “and it may not look like it, but I definitely cleared the leaves from this section of the lawn first thing this morning”. Surely some people, dare I say most people, would find exercises like raking leaves in a wind storm frustrating or even nonsensical. I do not. It makes me smile from the inside out and is a welcome reminder of the absurdity of life and my joy in experiencing it. Ok, I do sometimes find it frustrating when I occasionally work as a landscaper and gardener in my shoulder seasons when the effort can be transactional and the final product does need to meet a certain standard. And then I remember how ridiculously fun it was as a child to spend all day raking the maple leaves in my family’s back yard only to swan dive into a gigantic pile, thrash around in it, and clean it all up again. It is, after all, an existential exercise worth savoring, and it is a consistent experience unaffected by the arc of time through my life. Rake up (or use a leaf blower) a property into nice piles to be transported to the compost pile, look up at the many leaves still left on the branches, hear the breeze well up, and enjoy as yet another golden blanket descends onto the ground.

I do not think that it’s an accident that children, Labrador retrievers, and true practitioners of the ski instructors’ craft are existentialists. Authenticity, shared experience, and personal freedom as a means of seeking life’s true meaning are the hallmarks of existentialism, and thrashing around in a pile of leaves serves that purpose well. Unless you get a rash, which can be unfortunate. I’ll let someone else figure out how to explain scratching an itchy rash in philosophical terms, in the meantime I have a point to make about looking forward to the upcoming season of teaching and coaching in the mountains.

There are components of my working life as an instructor and coach where the objective of any particular activity is specific and measurable. I was an alpine race coach before I was an instructor, and the clock and finish order were a constant focus. I am absolutely certain that the process and experience of being a race athlete and participating in the sport do lend themselves to big picture philosophical thinking, but the necessity of being results focused in the sport does require a certain myopia. Similarly for ski instructors, certification is as close to an objective measure of a professional standard as we have in the profession, albeit a very flawed one. Working with instructors in their pursuit of advanced certification requires an operational approach and clear performance objectives, and having a philosophical overlay comes later with circumspection. It does remind me a bit of studying for and taking the bar exam – just get the thing done and think existentially after. You can watch the dragonflies dancing on the surface of Walden Pond after you pass the bar exam.

Don’t worry, I’m getting to the point.

Among the many things I love about teaching skiing and training other instructors is that we really do not have an objective measure for the success of our guests. If we really are good at what we do, it’s the enjoyment of skiing and of the process of improving and learning together that keeps us all - guests and staff alike - present, engaged, interested, and having a rip-roaring good time. It is truly joyous. When we and our guests experience some component of improved skiing or awareness of skiing in a way that brings us joy, it’s the same joy that a child or an adult feels the first time the slide on snow, and that joy definitely is childlike in nature.

There are instructors who forget that joy is the object, who don’t experience skiing at that level or don’t care to, or simply lack the skills necessary to participate alongside their guests in the pursuit of self-less guidance rather than doctrinal instruction. I feel sorry for them and for their guests. Make no mistake, there is real work involved, real focus, real effort, and real challenges in every phase of our shared endeavor with our guests, but the true prize always remains in focus when we create the right sort of learning environment. I really do believe it to be an existential exercise at its highest level, and I love every minute of it.

In my mind’s eye, I can see my friends and I at the bottom of the Deep Temerity lift at Aspen Highlands on a typically dreamy, uncrowded day, catching our breath after yet another stunningly fun run, smiling that same smile that we had wrapped around our faces as kids in a pile of leaves taller than we are. And laughing. And then doing it all over again.

Ok, this definitely is the fourth time I’ve raked up that leaf. And it’s the second time that bump threw me for a loop and made me cackle. Maybe the wind will stop for a moment and maybe I’ll have a little lighter touch next time on that part of the hill. Either way, I’ll enjoy every minute of it. And come back for more.

Looking West from Aspen, Colorado in October