The sign in the van said LAST PURGATORY PICKUP AT 4:30, but it was not a message from God. It was a reference to transportation from a 10,000-foot mountain in southwestern Colorado, where I was about to learn how to ski. The van had brought me twenty miles from Durango to a resort where hundreds of people were gathered for the sport that warms an orthopedist's heart.
After checking in, I unpacked and tried to forget that all my previous skiing had been behind a boat on a lake in Maine. Then I went to the ski shop to select my gear.
"I'd like a pretty short ski," I said to the young man working there.
"They run from 130 to 180 centimeters," he said rather stiffly.
"Have you got anything skateboard size?"
"Oh, you look like you could handle the 150s."
"They come right off when you fall - don't they?" I said nervously.
"Absolutely. With these safety skis, if you break something, it's usually just a small bone in the ankle."
"My entire ankle is just a small bone," I said, "so I really can't spare any of it. You see how thin I am. In fact, maybe there should be more of me to resist the wind."
"You'll do fine," he said. "Just be loose and go with the fall. And if you're heading for a tree or something, just remember to sit down."
At Purgatory, a ski instructor named Ron Baker took charge of our novice group and sent us down the bunny slope with the words, "Feet apart, knees bent, body in the middle, and turn by moving only the downhill ski - whichever ski is further downhill - in the direction you want to go."
I quickly discovered that I was able to keep just one instruction in my head at a time, especially when surrounded by so many lithe, golden-haired women. I chose "body in the middle," and so the first time I fell, I was perfectly centered going down.
It was obvious to me now that there was really just one thing to learn in skiing: how to stop.
"What about the snow plow stop?" I asked Ron, casually dropping a bit of expertise from a Robert Redford film.
"We don't use that any more," he said.
"And a Christiana, what about that? It was very big in the '48 Olympics."
"We don't teach that any more, either. We just turn the downhill ski."
When he felt we were ready for the first of Purgatory's slopes, Ron led the group to the group to the chair lift and I stepped into
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