Take me back, carry me back
Down to gasoline alley where I started from

I was sitting here listening to my iPod through Felice’s JBL On Stage speakers and I heard Elton John’s "The King Must Die".

You see I’ve got a playlist.  Of the 200 most played songs in my iTunes library.  I pull it up when I only want to hear familiar music.  Like when I’m on my back doing my dreaded back exercises.

I heard the Eels’ "Jeannie’s Diary".  Dido’s "Sand In My  Shoes".  Even Boston’s "Foreplay/Long Time".  And when I was done, I took the iPod and speakers downstairs and put them up on the kitchen counter and plopped down behind my PowerBook and looked out the window.  At the gray sky.  And snow-covered mountains.  And that’s when I heard "The King Must Die".

I don’t know why my freshman year in college is my most memorable musical time frame.  Why the records I played in January 1971 mean so much more to me than any others.  Could it be finally getting into the groove of college?  Or, could it be Winter Term, when I took only one course and could go skiing every day.  Yes, I’d go to "Political Campaigning" from 9-11 and then pick up my Rossis and Langes and troop down to the Mobil station to hitch a ride to the Middlebury College Snow Bowl.  And when I returned, after taking a shower, as the sun set over the Adirondacks, I’d lie on my bed in Hepburn Hall and listen to records.  Oftentimes on headphones.  Most specifically three.  The first two Elton John albums and Rod Stewart’s "Gasoline Alley".

I know, today Rod Stewart is a joke.  Maybe he’s got too many children and too many ex-wives, maybe he’s got bills to pay, maybe he had to throw in with Clive Davis and make those mediocre standards records.  But it cheapens his image.  Because, for a while there, Rod the Mod was God.

Lying in bed this morning I told Felice it was "Another Grey Morning".  That’s what you do when you’re a music fan.  Quote song titles and lyrics constantly.

But at about 10:30, the sun broke through.   And with three inches of new snow, the skiing was heavenly.  We were gliding through a patina of powder, feeling like this was the only place we wanted to be.  If you’ve never been skiing on a bluebird day, you might not get it.  But, if you have, you know exactly what I mean.

And then we dropped into the Back Bowls.  To ski Yonder Gully.  Which had been groomed the night before.

But the catwalk over…  It was as windy as I’d ever experienced.  The air and the snow were blowing up thousands of feet from the bottom of the mountain, drifts were accumulating, the flakes were stinging our skin.  But we loved it.  Because we were OUT THERE!  We felt ALIVE!

The run was great.  But the ride back up was horrific.  They had to slow the lift to a crawl and then STOP IT because of the wind.  But with our newly-purchased helmets, we just weren’t that cold.

Yup, when I went to pick up my skis at Gorsuch this morning it turned out they’d FOUND the helmet I wanted to buy, it HADN’T been stolen.  And, stunningly, I adjusted to wearing the lid almost immediately.  And, on this windy day, it kept me so WARM!  I think that aphorism about 40% of your body heat escaping through your head is true, even if a headbanded drug researcher on the lift denied it.

The seats had blown up on the downcoming chairs.  Parked at almost 11,000 feet in the Rockies we started playing a word game, to pass the time.  Eventually, the lift crawled back into action.  But, thereafter they started closing lifts left and right.  Even #2, Avanti, on the FRONT SIDE!  But we found some perfect snow, and avoided the wind by skiing behind ridges.  And, as we were swooping down the slopes we wore big smiles, because the sliding was JUST THAT GOOD!

And when the ski day was over, while Felice was out renting a new pair of skis, I found myself in the living room staring out the window listening to thirty five year old songs.  And I felt that I was exactly where I was supposed to be.  It might have been 85 degrees in L.A. before we left, but I like it here better.  You feel you’re involved with life, not just letting it pass you by.

Who’ll walk me down to church when I’m sixty years of age
When the ragged dog they gave me has been ten years in the grave

And now my iPod has slipped to Elton’s "Sixty Years On".

Life is about choices.  It’s just that you don’t realize you’re making them.  Doors are shutting constantly.  Oftentimes through inaction.  You’ve got to grab hold of life.  And try to do and accomplish what you want.  Because it’s so difficult.

What keeps you going are certain core things.  Which remain, even though the inception was long ago, even though you’re not sure exactly why you’re doing them anymore.

I’ll never be as good a skier as I was thirty odd years ago, when I skied every day of the season, year after year.  Oh, that’s not true.  It’s all about that edge.  Give me thirty days in a row and I’m there.

I count on skiing.  It roots me.

Along with music.

I hear "Gasoline Alley" or "The King Must Die" or "Sixty Years On" and I feel my life makes sense.  That I’m still the same person I ever was.  And I need to know that.  In order to keep moving on.