For this week’s blog entry, I was planning to write an essay related to the holiday of Halloween and how it’s been affected by the CoVid-19 Pandemic. I look at Halloween from a humorous perspective though. After all, I’ve only seen one of my all-time favorite movies, “Young Frankenstein”, eight times, and the giving out of Trick-or-Treat candy is one of my favorite adult things to do in relation to the day. Additionally, “The Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror”, is something I look forward to watching year in and year out.

Then I participated in the subject of today’s essay, and everything changed. My inspiration for this week’s essay was altered in an unexpected way. Enjoy!!

Word Count: 818

Many Hands Do Indeed

Make Short Work

In an earlier essay I wrote about night skiing I pointed out, ”Moving back to this valley has been one of the best things I ever could’ve done for my psyche.” My participation in last Friday’s winter 2020-21 work session over at Kendall Mountain Ski Area once again confirmed this for me. Hopefully, I’m finally getting the message.

Then again, it’s sort of like forgetting to put on some sun screen when you go, “Above-Timberline Hiking”, during the height of summer. You decide to take the ‘ole T-shirt off since the sun feels so intense. Maybe you shouldn’t be doing it, but don’t even bother with slathering on the sun-screen as you’re pulling the shirt over your shoulders. Now you’re paying the price, and one would think that sooner or later you’d get the message. Especially as you’re crawling out of bed the next morning and your backside feels like it’s just been dipped in boiling oil. Then again, some folks might like that. In this case, the scenario is basically a masochists’ dream come true.

As some of you know, I’ve been working over at Kendall for the last two winters, and fallen for the place. It’s small (basically catering to the local kids), and our chairlift doesn’t always work so well. In fact, my boss likens the lift situation to an old man (still cranking along, but somewhat obstinate and occasionally breaking down at the most inopportune times). Getting it re-started can often mean using profuse amounts of duct-tape, finger-crossing, a hot-air blow dryer to heat certain frozen parts, and lots of good “karma”.

Since we don’t have snow making capabilities, conditions can be hit or miss as well. Luckily, we’ve had decent snow the past two seasons, so moisture conditions have been pretty good.

It’s anybody’s guess what’ll happen this season, but people have mentioned to me on more than one occasion that it’ll be a “La Nina” moisture year. Meaning not much in the way of snow. I’m becoming convinced they tell me this whenever they want to see yours truly get extremely depressed (this strategy is quite effective by the way…).

This season may also see us doing weekly dance rituals to appease the snow gods so we’ll receive additional amounts of moisture. Occasional bonfires where old skis are to be burnt are also in the works should this scenario play itself out.

The “Old Farmer’s Almanac” says it could be a dry winter too. I don’t put much faith in that volume since the Old Farmer’s Almanac can often be as reliable as an Edsel. Does anyone other than your grandfather even remembers how great a vehicle those roadsters happened to be? About like the Ford “Pinto” or “Lada” in the old Soviet Union, I’m assuming.

I first heard about the Kendall Work Session for the 2020-21 winter season in this newspaper three weeks ago. Right when I read the brief, I decided I wanted to volunteer for the session and made it known to the powers that be I wouldn’t be clocking-in for the town when I participated in the event.Volunteerism being one of my favorite things to do.

When I showed up at Kendall last Friday, I had two choices as to activity participation. Help the guys paint the lift shack, or organize and take part in the hillside trash pick-up. Since I was wearing clothes I didn’t want to see with paint stains and ending up in the old garment bin, I volunteered to help out with the clean-up. Set out the trash bags and gloves, and jumped right in.

As I walked up the hill, picking up trash as I went, a wonderful thing happened. Every time I got further up the slope and looked back down, I noticed more and more vehicles in the parking lot. Pretty soon when I reached the top of the hill started back down, then reached the lift shack, I was pleasantly surprised to see a huge number of adults, and lots of kids running around. I noted that my boss was gone. Finding out later he had to go to the hardware store to get extra paint brushes. Turns out we had so many folks participating that we didn’t have enough tools to get the job done. What a great predicament to find yourself in?

I had to leave early before the post work-session BBQ (sometimes this multiple job thing can be such an inconvenience?), but drove back the very next day to check out the newly painted lift shack. Looked great, and I immediately came to the conclusion that when lots of people show up to help do a job, it does indeed get finished lightning fast.

The CoVid-19 Pandemic of 2020 has wrecked so many events this year. I’m happy to report that this wasn’t one of them.