...and I haven't been skiing in over 10 years.

Jack’s Ski Shop was a small business on the north side of Pico Boulevard between Westwood and Sepulveda boulevards in West Los Angeles. It was owned at the time by the same guy that owned the more posh Sporthaus in Westwood…just blocks from UCLA, but at least in my mind…Jack’s was a much cooler (more blue collar) place.

It was just a little east of the Anwalt Lumber facility that still sits on the southeast corner of Pico and Sepulveda and just a few doors west of the classic Norm’s restaurant and the old-school shoe repair store that stood almost directly next door.  I used to love going into that ski shop with my father when I was a kid and still remember the time he bought his red and white 200cm Kneissl White Star skis, Geze bindings and new Nordica boots (with buckles instead of laces). The shop had expert ski technicians that would professionally mount the bindings to the skis for about $8.00 as I remember…but my Depression era WWII vet father was way too thrifty not to call on his handy skills as an IBEW electrician and mount the bindings himself with the instructions and paper jig that came in with the new bindings.

I always thought that ski shop seemed like such a cool place to be…and dreamed of working there some day when I reached the appropriate age. When I was fifteen I rode my bike the two or so miles up  to Jack’s ski shop one afternoon and asked the manager Yogi Sawada for a job application. He was an avid outdoorsman and accomplished skier…and he always seemed to have a darkly tanned face that at least partially hid the faint scar that stretched diagonally across his face as a result of a ski edge that whipped up into his head (back in the day before ski breaks when skis were tethered to your ankles with leashes) during a bad racing fall. I still day he called the house (there were no mobile phones or computers back then) in 1977 to tell me to come by the shop. I hopped on my Schwinn almost immediately and peddled my way up Overland and west toward the beach on Pico to get to the shop.

Despite his reluctance to hire somebody so young, Yogi brought me onto the Jack’s team and it wasn’t long before I was dripping Ptex into damaged ski bases and using Nicolson files to put an edge on racing skis that you could use to shave. There were several guys that worked in the back with me. There was this crazy guy Bob…and dude named Tom and three cats named Mark Kleinman, Russell Nakiama and Jay Nakamura. We’d work into the night in the back tuning and engraving skis…and we usually stayed pretty busy in the rental shop as well…fitting up eager skiers before their big trips up to the local resorts or maybe even Mammoth. The older more accomplished ski technicians (Mark, Bob, Yogi and sometimes Russell) would work on the more sophisticated mounting bench, and at least as I recall the atmosphere in the shop was always carefree. It wasn’t uncommon to have a couple of 12-packs in the back (I didn’t drink) and we often brought in pizza or some other health food that would help us get through the backlog of skis that needed to be tuned, mounted or repaired ahead of a some holiday weekend or big holiday.

Seems like there was never a shortage of banter either. I don’t recall all the subject matter, but seems to me we’d chat a lot about skiing…including the then long-standing debate about long skis versus short skis. There was this fad at the time by some short skiers called “ballet,” and I remember my giant slalom racing buddy Mark Kleinman disgustedly summing up the ridiculous back-n-forth by saying “if you can’t ski…do tricks.” I was firmly in the longboard racing camp…and I’m still there today.  We’d laugh, sharpen edges, drink (they’d drink),  listen to soft rock on LA’s KNX FM radio (92.3 as I recall) and talk about approaching storm fronts and inevitable fresh snow. We’d argue about the greatest rock-n-roll guitar player (as a Sinatra buff…I mostly just listed to those debates), debate some Cold War politics, critique the Los Angeles Rams and kill a ton of discussion time all lying a lot about girls. It was a great place…and it broke my heart when Yogi came to me in the late spring and told me the store was closing (the owner kept the upscale Sporthaus going for a while).

Yogi, Mark, Jay and I all moved over to the new Oshman’s Sporting goods store on the southwest corner of Pico and Sepulveda for two seasons…and several of us made another move over to Westridge sports on Olympic and Bundy where I worked for several years for the Brekke family (the owner Ed loved me because of my partial Scandinavian lineage). That was a great place too, and it wasn’t uncommon at all to have Hollywood stars like Charles Bronson, Harvey Korman or Glenn Ford wander in. Stevie Nicks was coming in so often for a while (she was doing this Outward Bound program with the owner’s wife) that she called me by first name and the atmosphere in general served as a great proving ground before moving up to Mammoth Lakes to be a real ski bum.  But that’s another story for a another Friday morning.

What’s the point of all this? None that I can think of. It’s simply 4am on a Friday morning and amidst all the chaos in the world some old story about my first real job in Los Angeles (after a many year newspaper delivery gig) was the best I could do. Hope you all have a great weekend, and if you can, do something fun with the people and pets that you love. It may even hit 70 here in nation’s capital on Saturday, and after the winter we’ve had…you may want to slip outdoors for a few hours too.

 

Clarinet heaven...

 

...so don't miss the chance to help a brother out of a bind

This week didn’t start well for me. It involved one of those work-related incidents that makes you glance in the mirror and wonder if you’ve really learned a single thing over the course of your fifty-three years. Actually… “wonder” is the wrong word. It was the type of experience that more-or-less ensures that you actually haven’t learned a single thing. To add insult to injury, the incident confirmed yet again what I already know but never seem to remember...that most of the unpleasantness I'm involved in is my own, damn fault.

What actually took place isn’t important for this morning’s drivel, and though I know it’s frustrating to leave out the details…the point really for this offering was that this week, like I suspect some weeks do for some of you, seemed to start out very, very, badly. Then, just like a lot of weeks, yesterday, after a couple of fairly mediocre days, early Thursday morning brought an unexpected change.  A former classmate from the MPA program we went through at the University of Baltimore sent me an email early yesterday which was actually a chain letter. The message claimed in was National Friendship Week, and included a little story about some poor Scottish farmer cat named Fleming.

Apparently, one day, while working out in the fields, he heard a cry for help coming from a nearby bog. He dropped his tools and ran to the bog. There, mired to his waist in black muck, was a terrified boy, screaming and struggling to free himself. According to the story, Farmer Fleming saved the lad from what could have been a slow and terrifying death.

Supposedly the following  day, a fancy carriage pulled up to the Scotsman's humbled farmstead surroundings and an elegantly dressed nobleman stepped out and introduced himself as the father of the boy Farmer Fleming had saved.

“I want to repay you,” said the nobleman. “You saved my son's life.”

“I can't accept payment for what I did,” the Scottish farmer replied waving off the offer. At that moment, the farmer's own son came to the door of the family hovel.

“Is that your son?” the nobleman asked.
“Yes,” the farmer replied proudly.

“I'll make you a deal. Let me provide him with the level of education my own son will enjoy If the lad is anything like his father, he'll no doubt grow to be a man we both will be proud of.” And that he did.

Farmer Fleming's son attended the very best schools and in time, graduated from St. Mary's Hospital Medical School in London, and went on to become known throughout the world as the noted Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of Penicillin.

Years afterward, the same nobleman's son who was saved from the bog was stricken with pneumonia.

What saved his life this time? Penicillin.

The name of the nobleman? Lord Randolph Churchill . His son's name?

Sir Winston Churchill.

True? I don’t have a clue…but I doubt it. At the very least, the teller of the story probably took some real artistic license and I’m guessing the details were somehow embellished over the years…kind of like the old telephone game. I suspect a quick internet search could probably give some sense of the story’s accuracy…but you see, the veracity of the story here also really isn’t the point…or at least it wasn’t for me.

The thing that caught my eye was National Friendship Week, and the line at the end that included a chain-related plea for the reader to forward the story to anyone you consider a FRIEND. There was even some weird kind of scorecard tally that suggested a relationship between the number of people you would send it to and how quickly your “wish” would be granted.”

You see, that’s where things didn’t seem to bode too well for me. After the way the week started I figured I could send one blast email or about four separate electronic emails…but either way…according to the numbers, I was going to wait a long time for my wish to be granted (if you sent it to 20 friends…your wish would be granted in 3 hours).

So…two big problems for me. The first was I didn’t have a ready-made wish. The second seemingly bigger problem was at first glance…I thought I’d have trouble busting the 5-friend mark (3-month wish wait).

But then I started thinking about all the farmer Fleming’s in my life. All of the selfless people that put aside their immediate priorities to help be out of the mud. The list seemed short at first, but as I thought through all the folks that made a difference, there really was this kind of Wonderful Life moment.

Now sadly…I haven’t held up my part of the bargain. To my knowledge I haven’t sent any of my many Fleming’s offspring to medical school…and other than installing a couple of ceiling fans and approving a few check authorizations, I haven’t gone on to lead a nation or help save the world for democracy. The worst part is I also haven't even repaid the favor by pulling my share of folks out of the mud.  

I don’t think it’s actually National Friendship Week (might be in February if there is one), but I do think St. Patrick’s Day might be creeping up on us. As mentioned I’m also skeptical  about how true the story actually is…but regardless…it might be appropriate to start this Friday by thinking about all the Farmer Fleming’s in your life. It could even offer an opportunity for all of us to take the time to pull a brother or sister or two out of the bog.

Have a wonderful weekend.

 

You won't catch me dead with no blues...