Author Natalie Wallace (14 years old)
CREAM
OF THE CROP
Jan
3, 1981
Dear Diary:
Dear Diary:
Today I’m
wondering if I like snowboarding or boys better.
I discovered
the spectacular sport of snowboarding about six years ago, when my brother Mark
Wallace taught me how to snowboard. If I were asked to choose between a guy and
my snowboard, I would most likely choose the latter. Maybe it’s just because of
my great love of the sport and presently my not so great love toward boys. Within
the first minute or two of meeting a guy, I ask,
“So, do you
ski or do anything along that line?”
If his
reply is no that’s the end of that. If his answer is yes or along that line the
conversation continues. If they say,
“I don’t ski, but I snowboard, then
they are cream of the crop on my list.”
Yet I can
break it down even further havin ascertained the different type of
snowboarders. It’s one thing for a person to say they snowboard and another to
see if it’s really true. The real test is to take or get them on the slopes.
It’s not like they have to be a pro or they don’t pass my test. It’s just their
general attitude about snowboarding.
Here below
are a few examples.
First, I went
with Clark. He was real quiet and liked to race down the hill as fast as he
could. Each turn was precisely right. He avoided venturing into the trees or
any type of jumps. He stayed on the hard pack stuff. That’s o.k., but I didn’t
last long with him because he was a little too boring and I kinda of stay away from
the racer types.
Next there
was Brandon. He had me laughing the whole day. On the lift ride up he talked
the whole time and made jokes. He used words like dude, bro, radical, tweaking,
totally cool, etc. His personality was reflected in his snowboarding. He would
hit every jump and try to do a trick. He liked to slide on the stair railing,
picnic tables and anything else he could get away with. He is what the
snowboarding industry would call a jibber. Not to be rude but he is the type of
snowboarder that the ski patrol men make jokes about. One common one is this:
At a brain transplant center, there are brains in jars along with their price
tags. A visiting doctor is checking out the prices-lawyer: $5000. Doctor: 7000,
Snowboarder: $ 25, 000. The visiting doctor asks, “What’s the deal with this
snowboarder’s brain? How come it’s $25,000?” Another doctor answers, “Because
it’s never been used.” Brandon was fun to be with but I needed someone who
could say a sentence without the word dude in it.
Then there was
Dave. He was a beginner but I didn’t mind. We went down the easy runs. I gave
him some pointers and it was quite evident it bothered him that me a female,
would tell him what to do He
was the cocky chauvinistic type like guys are . So I said see ya
definitely wouldn’t want to be ya.
The next type
of guy snowboarder I encountered was Jeremy. He was the total adrenalin seeker.
I like going off a cliff every now and then, but he was definitely an
extremist. He would go off anything and everything. He didn’t think twice about
it. He didn’t wait to see if something was at the bottom like a big rock, icy
snow or anything else life threatening. That’s fine and all but I wouldn’t want
to get too attached to him because I couldn’t be sure that he would be alive
after a day of snowboarding.
Then there are the guys like Devon. You’d find him hiking
the half pipe all day, which is what it sounds like, just a hole in the ground
that looks like a plumbing pipe would look like if you cut the top off. These
people go back and forth hitting the sides of the pipe seeing who can reach the
highest altitude and pull the most unique trick. Sitting there you would hear a
lot of snowboard jabber like the way Brandon talked. These two types are quite
a bit alike. The ski patrol men’s joke that comes to mind about these types is
this: Question: What does a snowboarder use for birth control? Answer: His
personality.
As they say I
saved the best for the last I was up snowboarding and met Cliff. Well he
seemed to really have the soul for the sport. It is just something I’ve been
able to detect out of a snowboarder. I’m not saying that I’m the almighty snowboard
queen or something. I just love the sport with all my soul. I could travel
around and snowboard every day for the rest of my life, or until my body couldn’t
handle it.
Anyway,
back to Cliff. I noticed that he had the same sparkle in his eye when he
strapped in at the top of a run. It’s that I can do anything; I’m on top of the
world look. We hiked up to a kind of out of bounds place and we felt as if the
mountain was ours. The untouched powder glistened. We both started to snowboard
and it was as if I was transported to another world. Nothing in the world
mattered but carvin the soft snow beneath my feet.
I noticed out he didn’t use dude or bro in every sentence, I knew he was a definite
possibility. Looking back on all the different types of snowboarders I realize
that no one way is the right way. We all have the same thing strapped to our
feet. My purpose of snowboarding is not to meet a guy. It is the time that I
reach my euphoria, but if I happen to meet a Cliff type then that’s o.k.
To be continued...
