Blending

Ray Purcell

It was such a routine thing to do that I scarcely considered why I was doing it, so I don't really know what attracted my attention to the activity at this particular time. I was standing on the deck of the Mt Pinos Nordic Ski Patrol Hut, my cross-country ski was braced, the tail cuddled into the space between the brown stained deck boards with my right boot holding it in place. My left hand held the shovel of the ski against the decks railing. I had just finished corking in another layer of blue wax and since the snow was warming decided on a short layer of red wax. Wax for warmer snow tends to be sticky, with the extreme being klister an almost liquid wax that comes in a tube and is absolutely evil. If your not really careful the soft waxes will get on and into everything i.e., hair, clothing, the canned sardines you brought for lunch.

To save my life I couldn't really explain why I knew how much red wax to apply, where to start and where to stop, or the right amount of pressure to apply to avoid clumps of wax. What I did know is that if I didn't get the wax applied to the ski properly, instead of the ski having just the right amount of stick to propel me over the snow the skis would instead have ten pounds of snow stuck to the bottoms and I would be mired in misery. The answer to this conundrum lay at least partly in the skis themselves, since I'd been skiing on them for some 15 years.

No, its not because I've been waxing these skis for 15 years. In fact, when I bought this set of skis and boots from Doug Bentz at the Ski Chalet they had had a waxless base. A waxless base is a pattern cut into the skis synthetic base so that when the downward kicking motion compresses the arch, or camber of the ski it'll stick just the right to the snow allowing a forward glide and then release to begin the cycle again. The introduction of this technology caused a revolution in recreational cross-country skiing to the extent that waxing had almost become a lost art.

Back to my skis, the ones that had the waxless base, the operative word here is had. Over years of tuning the skis by sharpening the metal edges with a flat file and flattening the plastic bases with a scraper, the waxless pattern in the bases had all but disappeared. But, I just couldn't part with the skis that I came to lovingly refer to as my Mt. Pinos Mud and Snow skis, too many trips together, too much history, a ... well, committed relationship. So, I just started to wax them, just like I did when I first started cross-country skiing in 1975.

My history with cross-country skiing goes back much longer than my Mt. Pinos Mud and Snows, and like most things in life is best understood in the context of the times. I grew up in Daly City, California, one block from the county line with San Francisco, and was in high school during the first Earth Days. I guess I was a part of what I've heard referred to as the John Denver generation. I was full of fire to save the Earth and romanced the idea of living where I could learn to ski, backpack, and climb. So as soon as I had graduated from high school I wanted to flee "The City".

Naturally I had to find a place where all of my adventures could occur, preferably near by, but I also had to justify the move. Camouflage my ulterior motives with the pursuit of higher education. You know, for my parents who I'd hoped would underwrite the project. That's how I found College of the Siskiyous in (no, really) Weed, California. Education goals? Something in environmental sciences, of course, but I could worry about the details latter. The package seemingly sold to my parents, though with no small amount of tension and, in retrospect, healthy suspicion on their parts. But it did sell and that was all that mattered to me.

Since I'd been a cross-country runner in high school I continued the sport when I started community college in 1974. The location couldn't have been more perfect. Situated in a ranching valley between Mt. Shasta and the Siskiyou Mountains it was a dream come true, outdoor adventures, enough for a life time, ...oh, and education too. During cross-country season we'd get up at 5 AM to train. We ran on trails that looped through pine forest, meadows, pasture, and ridge tops. We'd start in the dark, freezing cold, with crunchy hoarfrost on the ground, and then the sun would rise over Mt. Shasta. The frost turned to dew and our shoes would get soaked. Wet feet and cold fingers didn't matter with views of the Sun rising over Mt. Shasta on the East and spreading it's morning light on Mt. Eddy on the West.

Mr. Friend, the track and cross-country coach, also taught skiing after cross-country season and that provided a seamless transition to winter sports. Some of us continued to train for running during the off-season, and that's when I got introduced to cross-country skiing. One burning cold day in January, with too much snow on the ground to run, Mr. Friend loaded us into his truck to go cross-country skiing. I'd never skied cross-country before and had no idea what I was getting into. I figured it couldn't be too different from downhill skiing, and hey if it was outdoors it was in my idiom.

Coach had a house that he had built which set back into the forest at the base of Mt. Shasta. He had to put his truck into four-wheel low to get us up the deeply snow covered driveway. After we all piled out he lead us up to a shed attached to the side of his garage. After shoveling away a drift of snow he threw open the door, and like Fibber Magee?s closet, a mass of the longest, skinniest, spindliest, wooden, ski resembling things fell out into the carpet of snow. Coach assessed the mess, reached into the heap and began matching pairs. We were each issued a pair of skis and what looked like... bamboo poles. Bonna was the word that was buried beneath the layers of scratched varnish that covered the skis...What's a Bonna?

Coach directed us into his garage and turned on the heater. Then he started rummaging around in a closet. When he emerged he had a cardboard box full of tubes and tins that he spilled out onto a workbench. The containers were labeled in a foreign language with temperature ranges in Celsius. Each tin was marked with colors ranging from cool blues and greens, to indeterminate violet, and then warmer reds and yellow.

As the garage warmed above the temperature of the average gulag I noticed that the bases of the skis that I had been assigned were getting sticky, so naturally I stuck my thumb into a spot covered by. I gave my thumb a twist for maximal adhesion and quickly pulled it away. Filaments of wax like a hundred parallel spider web strands stretched between my thumb and the wooden base of the ski.

Coach passed out several Benz-O-Torches with a flame spreader attachment and instructed us on how to not set ourselves, or his garage, on fire. We slowly and carefully melted down the layers of old wax that were impregnated with fir needles like ants in amber. In pairs we torched and scraped until at last there was a recognizable wood grain in the base of our skis. Next we were taught how to spread liquid pine tar into the just cleaned bases to reseal the wood. With a final pass of the torch the pine tar began to bubble slightly, gave off a fragrant resinous odor, and then was absorbed into the thirsty wood.

The next part of the instruction completely lost me. Coach explained how certain wax crystals matched corresponding snow crystals of a given temperature so that the ski could stick without having the snow freezing to the base. I simply followed the coach's instructions since as far as I was concerned he may as well have been a wizard sharing the arcane art of alchemy. Dutifully I thinly spread out a layer of blue over which I was told to spread a layer of green, then just the right amount of violet kicker (what's kicker?) making sure to cork each layer meticulously smooth.

We all piled back into the pick-up truck with gear that looked more like kindling than skis and headed up the road on Shasta. The morning was warming, but hunkered down in the bed of coach's truck it felt more the Antarctic in the off season. We piled out again at the trailhead with the Sun igniting the icicles that hung pendulously on the pine limbs like arc lamps against a cerulean blue sky. Coach tossed off his coat and with out so much as a "the pointy curved up part goes forward boys and girls!" he strode off up the trail wearing a strange one piece stretchy blue suit that seemed ill suited to the cold.

We were forsaken to mill around and figure out for ourselves how to attach what looked like bowling shoes with square toes to the three-pin bindings that fastened with the metal bail on the top. I guessed that coach figured we were college students, athletes, a team, we could figure it out. While I wasn't the strongest or the most graceful runner in the group we were all new to cross-country skiing and were suddenly on equal ground in our ability. With equal parts humility and determination, and absolutely no grace at all we all attempted to chase off after the coach by emulating his exaggerated diagonal stride. We all looked like a Special Olympics sack race, and I nearly got my nose pierced by the ski pole of the guy in front of me as he thrust it backward to stab the snow and got nothing but air.

All of us were dressed for downhill skiing in a hodge-podge of bulky pants and coats, meaning that we were very over dressed. I had on a big puffy blue down coat, the kind that was de regure for those who wanted to look outdoorsy in the 70's, and have now become a fashion statement for the, shall we say, urban youth. Cross-country skiing is already a vigorous sport, but when you factor in flailing madly the energy output increases by logs of ten. As I thrashed over the trail looking like a blueberry colored Michelin Man my pores opened like fire hoses. If that damn coat, North Face of course, weren't one of my prized possessions I'd have dressed a fir tree in it and continued on.

Time flitted by and I embraced many of the adventures that I had craved in high school. I left College of the Siskiyous with an Associate of Science in Biology, and with minors in climbing, skiing, and caving. Though with the closing of that chapter and the opening of another I had all but abandoned the kinetic sports, seldom even running. I had planned to continue college at Humboldt State, but the program was impacted and I had to wait out a year for admission. So without a plan for the interval I moved back home. Its hard to move back in with a parent once you've gotten out. To save my own kids the same suffering and humiliation we've told them that they can stay as long as they want, with in reason, but that they can't come back- I think it helps to be motivated.

I landed a job at a ski shop in the Bay Area long enough to get connected with a pro-deal on a down hill ski outfit. But the owner was a jerk and after I survived several of his attempts to suffer me into quitting was "laid off". I decided to spite him by collecting my unemployment check from Lake Tahoe. I found that several community colleges in the Bay Area had ski clubs that rented houses over the winter for their members use. So I registered for classes that I never attended and rotated habitation to avoid being a conspicuously vagrant. Finally, I joined the National Ski Patrol at Squaw Valley and that took care of the cost of lift tickets. I spent the winter suckling at the breast of self-indulged youth. The $102 unemployment check every two weeks generously paid for food, beer, and gas.

Ultimately I became infected by a particularly virulent strain of responsibility and returned to school at Humboldt State University to finish my degree. Near the point of recovery I had an unfortunate relapse, began dating seriously, and consequently married. During that courtship we tried premarital alpine skiing but found that, new to the sport, my true love was completely content to snow-plow the bunny hills- forever. But skiing with such disparate skills and ambitions is like sleeping in separate beds, if not separate rooms, so I introduced her to Nordic style and it was bliss. On our Honeymoon we cross-country skied around Mirror Lake at the base of Mt. Lassen.

Newly wed, cash strapped and struggling, Jimmy Carter was President, Three Mile Island had a nuclear "incident", and the price of gas was approaching $2.00 per gallon ... the first time. But, we could still buy two complete sets of cross-country skis, boots, and poles, with gaiters, for a $100 mail order. Of course if ever there were a metaphor for the melding of a couple in matrimony, a redefining of separate individuals through marriage, I had to sell my downhill skis to afford our new gear.

Over the first years of marriage we skied the hills and swales of life. I'm liking the waxing metaphor more and more because, like waxing, nothing in marriage is simple, especially early on, and if you don't have kick you can't glide, just flail around going no where. I've taken to telling the kids that there is nothing in life that is more work than making a relationship work.

We bought our first house and were so excited to move in that we didn't care that the utilities hadn't been turned on. That frosty November night in our new home it was twenty-eight degrees inside and thirty-two degrees outside. Huddled together for warmth our breathing turned to fog- fog enough for a werewolf movie. Nine months latter Courtney was born.

An August baby, Courtney spent her first Thanksgiving swaddled heavily in blankets and bumping along gently in a sled that I towed behind us as we skied in Lassen National Park. She slept peacefully until we stopped to rest and then raised hell. My wife attributed this to the babies fetal memory from when Lisa took a face plant fall while skiing early in the pregnancy.

I'll never forget one of Courtney's first Thanksgiving meals on that trip to Lassen Park. We had skied up the snow covered park road to Bumpass Hell; these are volcanic fumaroles of bubbling hot mud and gushing steam vents that issues with a roar like the pistons of an old steam locomotive. Impressive in the summer these reminders of Mt. Lassen's last eruption in 1912 are more conspicuous in winter because the steam condenses into billowing clouds in the frigid air. They also offer more temperate islands from the chill while breastfeeding- and we wonder why Courtney detests the cold.

Where one small child in diapers is portable for outdoor adventures, two make it logistically, to be generous, improbable. Carrying all the basic kid stuff like, bottles, specialty food, waste management equipment and hygiene supplies, would require porters. So when Sean came along 14 months latter he got short shrift on the more grand outing schemes that we simply packed Courtney along for. So we adjusted.

By the time Sean was old enough to be put on skis our family had moved to Bakersfield. Coming from Redding, in Northern California, adjusting to Bakersfield was difficult, more adjustment. I was pleased that winter did occasionally occur here, albeit furtively, sneaking into the generally arid Southern San Joaquin Valley now and again and leaving snow that was accessible for a skiing day trip. One of what I came to refer to as secret spots, if you can call a place secret that's one to two hours from the multitudes who live in the land of LA, is Mt. Pinos.

But where Mt. Pinos can be a jewel for cross-country skiing, it's snow cover can be here and then gone in as little as a week, and then return at the capricious whim of the next winter storm- when ever that might be. That's where the Mt. Pinos Mud and Snow Skis come in, and every year I nurse them along to ski over a fickle landscape that is winter one moment and spring the next. At least I've learned the ways of skiing on Mt. Pinos, learned how to tease out the secret spots, the best snow conditions and slopes. Adjusting to sharing the mountain has been another story.

At first I had weekdays off from work so there was far less, if any, competition for access to skiing. In fact most people on the mountain skied cross-country and there was even a congenial group of regulars. But times changed and I lost my mid-weeks off of work. Getting to the mountain on a weekend while avoiding the crowds of herding Angelinos with their incumbent roadblocks and traffic snarls after a while caused me to want to avoid the chaos and ski elsewhere.

I remember driving home from the mountain one day after a storm had left a sizable dump of snow down unusually low. Traffic was stop and go reminiscent of the 405 or the 10 Freeways in Los Angeles; imagine a "Sig Alert" on Mt. Pinos. The scene resembled a post-apocalyptic Mad Max in the snow. Vehicles of all sizes vied for the most improbable parking opportunities.

Tempers flared, fights started, blood was shed, all the while snow balls where arching through the sky over the road like mortar rounds. Troops squared off into siege lines armed with waxed cardboard, Rubbermaid trashcan lids, and plastic garbage bags. Armadas of brightly colored plastic sleds flooded over surrounding ridges in a flanking suicide attack on the viscous traffic. Mean while the commanders had their headquarters encamped and meals being prepared for the troops.

Supply lines wound there way thorough the mud and slush from vehicle to camp. Along these paths stocky darkly complicated women in housedress' who wore flat shoes with knee high nylons and plodded with plastic containers filled with tortillas toward the signal fire of the Santa Maria Bar-B-Qs. The General's perimeter was defended by troops who seemed worked into a wild frenzy by blaring narco-carrido singers and gangsta rap. Everywhere was the chest thrumming BOOOMP UHHMP TOOMP of the subwoofer. It was as savage a scene as I have ever witnessed. Having escaped the madness with my life I vowed to return no more.

But I couldn't stay away, it was like a taunt, an "I dare you." Skiing the mountain became a pugnacious challenge to defy the regulatory establishment with its tyrannical Adventure Pass Fee Project, and evade the choke of brainless snow players. I decided to become a warrior, a ski Ninja. I would adopt an aura of stealth, slipping in and out unnoticed, my passing no more than a breeze on their cheek. My strategy was simple, determine the enemy's defenses and evade them using the simplest tactic in the book, the predawn attack.

Rising early I would approach on I-5 then secreted through the still sleeping town of Frazier Park and the hamlet of Lake of the Woods. With the Sun barely rising I could slip then past the security check point at the intersection of Mt. Pinos Rd. and Pine Mtn. Club before the Forest Service and Highway Patrol Storm Troopers finished their first donut and coffee. Having slipped past the wire I was free to be responsible, put on tire chains as I saw fit, and park my car without the double taxation of having to buy an Adventure Pass. Instead I accumulated a number of Adventure Citations.

Though there were those rare days of skiing down the North Ridge of Mt Pinos through nearly perfect fresh snow and cutting lazy tele turns down north facing bowls, dawn patrol on Mt. Pinos usually meant slogging through breakable crust, ice, and snow that was barely there. But suffering the typical Southern California snow conditions was worth it to stand on top of Mt. Pinos and look out over its sister peak, Cerro Noroeste, the Spanish name for the peak not the forgotten name of the has-been local politician that's still on some maps; the Southern San Joaquin Valley buried under it's now perennially opaque haze; and the rippling and banded sedimentary topography of the Sespy Drainage, bare exposed rock that looks like a stack of Denny's pancakes cut open and mashed from the sides so that they're folded and convoluted.

Back on the deck of the Ski Patrol Hut I stroked the leather palm of my glove over the completed blending of wax for an extra bit of smoothness. Intuitively I know how the ski will perform in the snow from the touch of it. Off to my right I notice two small boys who are playing gleefully in the slush that's become a kind of pre-puddle gel over the top of the black parking lot asphalt. Almost simultaneously their respective parents discover them. Through the ensuing parent-child interaction I discover that the children's families did not arrive together since each child was being called to return to a different parking lot encampment.

I marvel at children's ability to enfold each other so spontaneously as colleagues in play, even in, perhaps especially in, unfamiliar circumstances. In this case we had a maybe ten-year-old Hakim, with ebony black skin like the neatly dressed man with the perfect posture and precise way of moving that authoritatively bad for the child to return to his own group. The other child, of similar age, though clearly the more gregarious and effusive, had short black wavy hair, dark olive complexion, and a clearly Middle Eastern nose. The latter delayed returning to his group with the universal "aw Mom, do I have to" sort of body language, when the young woman with an oval face and neatly arranged jojoba covering her hair called "Randy!" She had a soft high voice and her arm scooped cold air toward their group in a sweeping curved emphatic arc to beckon her son.

I stepped back into my skis and slipped down into a copse of trees. The laughs, shrieks, and auto noise was immediately muted and then disappeared entirely as I strode among the conifers that bordered the snow covered meadow. Sitting in the Sun on the opposite margin of the meadow there were a number of older boys, all arranged in groups of 5 to 7, each attentive to one or two mature men as though being instructed. As I snuck up closer I could see that each group sat on blue plastic tarps and insulated themselves from the snow with pads that ranged from hospital bed egg crates to ancient Ensolite that looked as though it could crumble like dry toast.

As I neared the end of the meadow about to make good my escape I was intrigued by one of the groups nearest to me. About eight young men dressed in a melange of winter clothes, sitting remarkably still (perhaps dysfunctionally so given that they were pre-teens) and respectfully listening to a darkly complected and thickly mustachioed man. The leader was commanding though he had an air of confident gentleness. He wore a shirt the color of a cocktail olive covered with the regalia of a Scoutmaster. I too was attentive as he patiently described how they would dig their snow caves. Not so much by the topic but that he spoke in elegant formal Spanish, resonant with deep vowels and rolling R's.

Each group was associated with a corresponding clutch of tents; multi-colored domes that resembled Swedish Easter Eggs plopped into the snow. An assortment of camping gear was spread across picnic tables that had been excavated for the purpose, and there were backpacks from venerable circa 1970's olive-green Keltys to newer Camp Trails. The entire assemblage represented a three-decade retrospective of camping gear.

As I skied away it occurred to me that cross-country ski wax is an enigma. It is an enigma not only because a thin layer of just the right wax will conspire with the snow to allow the skier to kick and glide through a Winter's day. But wax is also an enigma because the best result is the product of experienced and artful blending. Perhaps that's why I find the art of ski waxing so metaphoric of the human condition. Waxing is allegorical because, like life, over time the skier acquires acumen that changes the nuances of application, blending, and layering; through trial and error and learning from the experience of those more masterful, the skier almost imperceptivity adapts more effectively to the snow, integrates into the Winter environment, and as a consequence the skier is irrevocably changed. All this from the unlikely relationship between two seemingly disparate substances, snow and wax.

One morning Lisa and I were sitting in a coffee shop, accompanying each other in a parallel, non-interactive, too early and not enough coffee sort of way. As I took a sip of the aromatic dark roast and then a bite of flaky pastry my attention dipped in and out of the doings of the clutches of other patrons scattered about the shop; like a kid might dip a spoon in and out of his alphabet soup looking for meaning- or absurdity. As though a divining rod were directing me a group at a table by the window began to fascinated me.

At that table sat a gentleman with gray and receding hair, he was wearing a shiny crimson nylon jacket with a lavishly colorful dragon embroidered over the back beneath which was the word Saigon. Other than the jacket he might have been otherwise indistinct, he wore a plaid shirt open casually at the collar, and khaki pants. He sat with his arms resting on the table, hands together and fingers enfolded, his index finger flexed and extended in an absent minded way toward his coffee cup.

Also at that table and sitting opposite the older man were two Asian girls of twelve or thirteen who could easily have been Vietnamese. They were each dressed in a trendy youthful way that would allow them to blend in among their peers at the mall or on campus; a fashion that offers a natural stealth or camouflage in the wild except to those among their own adolescent species. Sitting beside the man was a boy, also about twelve or thirteen, with natural blond hair that was subtly spiked up, perhaps a compromise made with his parents over a potentially more severe style. The boy also wore a skater shirt and baggy cream colored baggies with many pockets. I'd have expected to see him at the Skate Park pulling a Backside-Ollie-Kick-Flip instead of here.

In fact I'd have expected to see these kids anywhere but here. Mind you the situation at their table wasn't creepy, it was just out of place. This group would have been more apropos in a school library or resource center. The older man emanated a confidence and comfort in the company of the kids, the way a seasoned teacher might. Correspondingly the kids were engagingly attentive while the gentleman in the crimson Saigon jacket described his experience in helicopter warfare in Vietnam.

The man was describing a tactic for destroying Viet Cong gun emplacements and their associated tunnel systems. As he detailed the technique of suspending large drums of gasoline and explosives on a palate beneath the helicopter, he turned his coffee cup absently. He seemed to come and go from the table in a metaphysical sort of way; slipping away to another place and time and then returning to the present. His transit wasn't marked by any change in the pace of his speaking only a momentary vacancy in his eyes. He went on to explain that when the explosives and gas were detonated the subsequent fireball and overpressure would kill the soldiers in the tunnels by the blast or by asphyxiation.

The man used no euphemisms for killing to spare his audience, he used no self depreciation or aggrandizement either, he was not morose. The gentleman in the crimson dragon coat simply delivered his testimony as would an expert witness to a Grand Jury, though not a jury of his peers or contemporaries but to the peers of a different generation. A generation that had been alienated and disenfranchised from a war waged in another time and on another continent. A war that belonged possibly to their parents and probably to their grandparents.

In the abstract, human events and experiences are merely reiterations because with time and space they become echoes, or perhaps more accurately specters. The substance of that history becomes diluted by the bluster and rhetoric of the future, and the ignominy of our less proud moments is lost, and with the loss of those elements war can become a siren. As Lisa and I sat in that Starbucks the day after the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom the air was figuratively heavy with irony. Yet at that particular table, where generations were delicately and reversibly bonded I fully appreciated the enigma of wax.

April 2003