The Unmuddled Mathematician

My Name Is Not Jean Claude Killy

By Chris S. Coray, The Unmuddled Mathematician

In case you didn’t know and that is likely because it happened a long time ago, there was a guy from France named Jean Claude Killy, who won the gold medal in all 3 alpine skiing events in an Olympics many, many years ago.  Besides being a great skier, I’m told that young women found him to be the Brad Pitt or (put your favorite hunk here) of that generation. 

Despite growing up in Salt Lake I had never, not once, ever tried skiing all the way through the university years.  This became an issue when my friends kept increasing the pressure and the teasing about living so close to the “Greatest Snow on Earth” but never even trying to ski.  So like almost all of us I yielded to the peer pressure and agreed to go. 

Things were different then.  I suppose there were lots of places one could rent equipment but I didn’t know about them.  So my plan became a modified version of how to do everything wrong.  From a neighbor’s basement I managed to borrow a pair of skis so old it is hard to imagine, let alone describe them.  They were very long, heavy, and without any other identifiable feature.  I didn’t have ski boots so I took my leather hunting boots, with laces, and fastened them with wire and other fasteners to the skis.  This was not a quick release assembly.  With the boots securely attached to the skis once I put my feet in the boots I was attached, as in really attached.  My outfit consisted of levis, a duck hunting coat, fingerless mittens used while goose hunting, and two broom handles that served as ski poles.  

No goggles, just my regular glasses.

We drove to Brighton, my “friends” and I, bought passes for just a couple of runs and I began to put on my armor and portable railroad tracks.  Having a pretty good sense of balance I was successful in navigating, by stepping sideways, my way over to the lift.  There were lots of strange looks in my direction as I neared the lift, after all my broom handles were not the same color, but I made it to the lift in a Tim Conway old man fashion without falling down.  However, when it came time to get on the lift it was clear that there was no way for me to handle that smoothly, so the operator brought the entire lift to a stop so I could shuffle out to the chair.

 

Riding up the lift was pretty easy.  There’s nothing required.  However, at the top one has to get off.  In my case getting off meant a giant tangle of legs, railroad tracks, broom handles, snow, rolling, sliding, until gravity stopped me in the small collection area at the bottom of the lift.  All that remained was the simple task of getting to the bottom of the hill alive.  To be fair, my friends did not at that time desert me in my hour of need.  Somehow they got me to my feet, arranged me to point downhill, and then deserted me completely.   No instruction, no side by side guidance, just a “Good Luck”. 

Off I went.  The trouble was that I actually had really good balance in those years.  No skill but good balance.   Ski slopes being what they are I began to accelerate straight down what is called by the skiers, “The Fall Line”.  Mathematicians know this path as the “Gradient”.  In any event my speed went up, way up, and in mortal fear as the increased up my position became ever more of a deeper and deeper crouch.  No turns were possible as I didn’t know how, but pretty quick my fanny was touching the railroad tracks.  Other skiers on the hill, thinking I was just a crazy young kid showing off, began to yell and point at me, giving many would be victims the chance to get out of the way before I killed them.  Faster and faster, straight down the hill, not a hint of a turn, unable to see much because my glasses fogged up, came the uncontrolled hunter dressed as a skier.  I was going way faster than those around me, in fact going so fast that some thought I knew what I was doing because I wasn’t falling over.  If only.  After what seemed an hour but was only a couple of minutes I could make out the end of the run.  For you that would be where you would gracefully stop near the bottom of the lift.  For me, it was the parking lot full of cars and stopping was not in my skill set.  I can still see all those cars directly in front of me and imagined myself and my railroad tracks impaled precisely dead center in a windshield.  OK, what would you do? 

Well, at the last possible second I hurled myself sideways to get my body on the snow.  A slow motion video would have been worth having today.  As it was, there is only one word to describe what happened—turbulence.  Violent turbulence.  But fools are sometimes saved and I became enough of a human gyrating snowplow to come to a full stop 3 feet from a gray Volkswagen.   After 5 minutes to contemplate what should have been the end of my life but wasn’t, I took off my railroad tracks and gave my single remaining run pass to the first person who walked by.  I hope he enjoyed it.

There is a sort of a PS to this story.  At age 42 my wife insisted I try skiing again.  This time, good equipment, nice outfit, beautiful day.  But my wife deserted me immediately upon leaving the lift and I was smart enough to fall often to avoid warp speed.  Bruised but not dead, I avoided the parking lot by at least 50 yards.  I’ll go again when Kam Jarman goes out on the Bear Lake ice with me in pursuit of a fish.