I was sitting in our bedroom this morning, watching the early morning skiers racing by to get to the chairlift that gently swings in the air less than a 100 feet or so from our winter house in Montana. I am probably the luckiest person in the world to have carved my 60-year-long career of making movies and writing stories about my love affair with snowflakes.
How lucky I have been.
About the middle of December, my wife Laurie and I had our trailer full of moving-to-Montana-for-the-winter stuff packed and were getting ready to leave for our winter home. That was when I heard the phone ring that was followed by her cry of “Oh, No!”
A kitchen pipe had broken and the water had been flooding and freezing in our winter home for many hours. Water was deep in our living room, dining room and kitchen on the main floor and the ceilings and walls in the lower floor were falling down and water was everywhere.
Christmas was right around the corner when we finally got our first look at the carnage that thousands of gallons of water can cause during a three-day period. The local disaster company had shut off the streaming water, rescued a few of our upstairs carpets, put the dining room table up on blocks above the water level and squeegeed what water they could out the doors. Fortunately for us, the kitchen appliances, our bedroom and offices were operable, so we decided to hang in here for the winter while repairs are being made.
For the first two days, Laurie was understandably very distraught because she supervises all of the construction. After three days of watching her agonizing over the extensive water damage, we finally had unpacked enough stuff to find time to sit down for a chairlift ride together. That was when I said, “Laurie we have four kids and five grandchildren between us. None of them are in jail, none are alcoholics or druggies, there have been no automobile accidents, we all have good health and all of these wet and warped floors and collapsed ceilings can be fixed! Let’s count our blessings.”
The next day we sat in our boot room to put on our ski boots and brain buckets and skied for the all the runs I could handle after coming up from sea level. With each turn I realized how much freedom I have enjoyed during my life. The fact that I have been a pied piper with my films has been driven by my desire to share all of the good things that have come my way. Skiing in Switzerland in 1952, when all of the skiing was on south facing slopes. Skiing in Vail during the first year it was open when, one day, it sold just eight lift tickets and I had waist-deep powder in the back bowls and a hard time finding four skiers to make turns for me and my camera.
As the carpenters and technicians pound and saw the floor below my office, I remember the early years when I did that for a living. I joined the carpenters union so that I could take a few days off, drive to where the snow was good and work on my next film, and when I got back to town I would just go to the union hall and find immediate work framing houses.
With well over 100 days of being able to ski stretching ahead of us at the Yellowstone Club where we live, I can work on my autobiography for a two or three hours when I first get up in the morning, then ski for a couple of hours and then do some more writing or art work when I finish skiing for the day.
I know that my body was not designed to take the punishment that I have put it through over the years. With each passing year, there are a few more creaks and groans with each movement. The ski industry, however, has spent millions of dollars just to make it easier to turn my skis and I enjoy almost every turn I have made during my 72 years of skiing out of 85! As long as I can get up in the morning, look out the window at the snow, watch the chairlift running, go to the kitchen, cook and eat a bowl of oatmeal, I am already ahead of the world for that day. Anything that happens during the rest of the day is always a bonus because I have made a lifelong career out of my love affair with snowflakes.