SnoNews

I have 21 feet of three-ring binders full of stories and memorabilia that I am trying to digest into my biography, and my bookshelf spans the years between 1924 and whenever I finish reducing it to readable size. 

Long before commercial airlines had jet airplanes, I had logged about a million miles or so, sitting midway between four propellers that got me from A to B through storms back then, instead of above them. Often the ride was rough.

In 1947 I made the unconscious decision to spend my winters anywhere there was enough snow to turn those weird things attached to my feet. During that time I have seen all kinds of unusual weather conditions. 

On the wall over my drawing board, beside my desk in my office in our home, on the side of a ski hill, 100 feet from the chair lift, hangs lots of memorabilia. Each of these conjures up images of stuff that I have done or photos of faraway places that I would like to have visited when I was a lot younger and stronger.

I had used my surfboard, skis, sailboats, and now windsurfing to lead me through life up until this time. I had a very deluxe camera boat that I earned working for Dave Slickers on a sailing film, and had never used it very much in the past.

After Jean Claude Killy, who is a super guy and a friend to this day, had won his three gold medals in the Olympics, the company was approached by a slick sports personality agent, to produce a 13-week TV series of him skiing all over the world.   

When I produced “Ski on the Wild Side” in the ‘60s, it was a major mistake. For the first time, I started to believe some of the very favorable press releases about my work (written by me, of course). 

A casual conversation can later have a lot of unanticipated consequences. 

Last week I left you in the middle of my short career as a ski tour director all over Europe. 

After my first filming trip to Europe that Merrill Hastings publisher of Skiing News Magazine promoted for me in 1953, the only way to convince the airline to send me the second time was to promote a ski tour to the Alps via Scandinavian Airlines. 

Sepp Benedikter was a famous Austrian ski instructor who, for some reason, spent a lot of years in Southern California converting sun worshipers to skiers.  

A couple of the windows in our mountain house are rattling against the onslaught of what turned out to be gusts up to 78MPH winds today. 

It’s Presidents’ Week, so let me recall a time we all remember so well. 

The sky above the village was slowly changing from grey to the pale blue of dawn.

Amazing the things that are tucked into my feeble brain…as I work on the autobiography, more and more of them surface.

There were guests from almost everywhere the other night in our house for dinner.

After Laurie and I got serious about each other we decided that instead of hanging out together at Sun Valley where we both had deep roots we would settle somewhere else.

Last night I held the future in my arms when our two young friends Nic and Jenny stopped by with their new baby, who they have named Magnolia Leigh.

In the early 1950s, in between pounding nails during the week as a carpenter at $2.25 an hour, I would drive the 350 miles on Friday night to Mammoth and work on my next movie.