“Are you crazy?” I yelled. Obviously he didn’t realize (yet) just how bad I was at flying down hills on fiberglass boards. They make snowboards out of fiberglass to make them go faster, but I didn’t need to go faster, I needed training wheels! I would go just as fast on my rear, why don’t they just make the mountain one big slide? I tried to stall for time.
“I’ll just wait for this group of people to go by.” It didn’t work.
“Josh, think about it, there will always be someone speeding up to run you over.” Jonathan laughed; I didn’t see what was so funny.
I started down the hill just as I began to pick up speed, the front end of my snowboard dug into the snow and I fell over. I looked back to see how far I had gone. To my utter disappointment (or was it relief?) I had only gone five feet.
I continued my (now patented) “Five-Foot Fall” trick for the next 20 minutes, much to the amusement of Jonathan, who by now had found a nice, safe spot to watch my performance. I eventually slid over to him and, after emptying about half the mountain out of my pants, flopped down exhausted. I looked at Jonathan, who was laughing, and I started laughing too!
People were giving us those, “Are you O.K.?” looks, before continuing down the hill as fast as they could. I smiled knowingly after them, I couldn’t blame them.
By the time I made it to the bottom of the slope, Jonathan’s seven-year old daughter, Tabitha, had gone down three times! I was barely beginning to get the hang of the snowboard, she has been doing this for 2 years, and I had been doing it for…an hour.
Two runs later I was feeling pretty confident. Just then Jonathan slid over.
“So, are ya ready for the REAL MOUNTAIN?” He asked,
“REAL Mountain?” I questioned. I craned my neck to see where he was pointing. What I saw almost made me faint. It seemed like a sheer drop. I looked back at the hill I was on; so what if it was the Bunny Hill, it was fast enough for me!
I glanced back at the “REAL” mountain, gulped hard, and started toward the ski lift.
“All right!” Jonathan cheered. Something in the way he said that made me want to turn around and stay in the nice warm lodge for the rest of the day. But I knew that I would just be wasting forty bucks, so I kept trudging ahead with Jonathan and Tabitha waiting for me at the lift after I slipped and slid into the long line waiting to go up the mountain. We all piled into a rickety old rusty chair lift, and we were on our way.
When we reached the top, that “scared-stiff” feeling I first experienced at the Bunny Hill washed over me again.
“You know guys,” I said, “I really liked the Bunny Hill.”
“Well, this the only way down now!” they yelled, as they sped away. I gritted my teeth and took off, and I didn’t fall down! But soon I was going way too fast, and didn’t know how to stop!
Going just under a gazillion miles per hour all I could think of was, “I’m going to die!”
I couldn’t decide whether to fall down or to keep going until I reached the bottom, or hit something. Since I could not make up my mind, the snow did it for me. Once again, the edge of my board hit the snow and sent my already bruised body into a snow bank. The good news was that I had traveled half way down the hill. The bad news was that I was starting to think that I might be paralyzed for life.
Finally because of Jonathan’s patience and my willingness to take the pain, I had officially completed a trail without falling down! Then I made it down again! And again! I was so confident I decided to try “Turbulent Park” which was a killer hill filled with rails and jumps, anywhere from three feet to ten feet high! I started down with Jonathan right behind me. It was then that I thought, Hey! Why not show Jonathan and everyone here how much I‘ve learned?!
With that I steered toward the ten-foot jump I sped up the slope and shot into the air. It was a great view, and I could tell that everyone was looking at me. I was so busy trying to look cool, so I didn’t notice the ground coming up at me, CRUNCH!
The Moral of story: Being cool is not as painless as it looks.
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