In a triumph of optimism over rheumatism, I bought new skis.

My son Sam and I were skiing at Stowe when I demo’d these beauties, a pair of K2 Apache X’s, and fell in love with them.

They were around $800 so I didn’t even consider buying them while still in Vermont. But I couldn’t get them off my mind. That’s how love is.

On the Internet, I found a pair for half price. Place in Long Island. Might have been called Hot Skis Inc.

Bought ‘em without bindings to save even more. Ripped the perfectly good Rossi bindings off my perfectly shitty Rossi skis and put them on the new pair. Colors even matched. But after my local store, Ski Rip Off Inc., mounted the Rossi bindings, I’d cost myself about what I’d saved — and didn’t even have the K2 bindings designed for the K2 skis. I felt the black despair that occurs when you have the date with the girl of your dreams, and afterwards spot the spinach stuck between your teeth.

But when I finally got out on the slopes, the skis performed flawlessly. They really are a wonderful pair of skis.

I bought them three seasons ago but I’ve skied on them only about five days. Two seasons ago I hurt myself and didn’t ski at all. Last season I went to Tahoe before Christmas with my daughter Shawn and my grandson Kai and it rained almost every day. Damn the rain, I’m skiing, said I, and sure enough there was snow above 8,000 feet. But powder it was not.

Now my “new” skis are to be put to the test at last. Sam and I are headed for the Wasatch Mountains tomorrow afternoon for six glorious days. Alta. Snowbird. Solitude. Brighton. We’re gonna ski ‘em all.

What is a man doing on skis who has, while skiing, broken an arm, dislocated a shoulder, cracked a rib and torn his right medial meniscus? Who as a child was always picked last for baseball — and fought over? (”You gotta take him. We took him last time.”) Who, playing tennis one time with Mr. Macho a/k/a Dick Foster, caught his ankle jumping over the net, landed on his hand and broke his arm? (A fortuitous event that led indirectly to marriage with his one and only wife Carol. Tell ya about that one some other time.) Who broke his wrist in 13 places falling off a horse, and acquired a titanium screw permanently in his left hand falling off a bike? Who’s had back surgery not once but twice — at C4-C5 (neck) and L5-L6 (lumbar spine)?

Skiing, that’s what.

Despite my tragic — no, make that pathetic — early history, I’ve become a late-in-life athlete, sorta. I work out. I stay active. I’ve been playing tennis almost daily these unseasonably-warm past two weeks. At nearly 67, my tennis game is the best it’s ever been. I may never become an expert skier, but thousands of dollars in lessons have at least made me a perfectly passable intermediate.

Sure I’m old. Sure I hurt. So what’s with the skiing already?

Well, I could go on about the views only skiers see … the sharp delight of a lungful of the cleanest cold air left in America … the ache-all-over pain/pleasure that follows a day of stretching joints and tendons to the breaking … the chance to buddy up yet again with my Sammy-Boy. All part of it, to be sure, but not the essence.

What it is, really, is the beating of the system. The defiance of the odds. The going out one more time, dammit, and coming back alive.

Otherwise, it’d be mere tennis.

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. I’ll be on The Book Report on Wednesday, Jan. 10, around 8:30 a.m. Central Time. The show is produced by Windows A Bookshop in Monroe LA. To listen on the Internet, visit www.thebookreport.net/listen.php. If you’re near Monroe, listen live on KMLB, 1440 AM. Also heard on KLCN, 910 AM in Blytheville AR.