The Eskimo Club
The Eskimo Club
December 10, 1991
Every winter Saturday morning, my younger sister and I would pile into the back seat of our black, 55 Chrysler with the pale blue seats, and my dad would whisk us downtown through Denver’s cold, bleak, empty early morning streets for the Eskimo Club.
He used to brag that he was blind in one eye and couldn’t see out of the other one, it was definite that he was blind in one eye—he has a glass eye. And the other one had a big scar across the middle from a childhood accident, and he truly didn’t see very well from it.
Mary and I would grab each others hands and squeeze tight, hoping we’d get to the train station alive. Behind us we’d hear horns honking and brakes squealing, but as my dad would also brag, he was never in an accident and had never had a ticket.
He also smoked cigars, and as we sat in terror, we struggled to breathe. We were not allowed to comment on my dad’s cigar. We’d cough occasionally, discreetly, and if it wasn’t too cold, we’d crack the window slightly. But my dad considered that children were to be seen and not heard—and they were certainly not the arbiters of his smoking habits.
The Eskimo Club represented to me the height of all that was miserable. The train waited to take literally hundreds of rowdy, joking, heedless children up to Winter Park to learn how to ski.
I was a chubby, big-footed, unathletic preteen who couldn’t even carry her skis confidently. It was an act of supreme coordination for me to get them to go on my shoulder without braining myself to a stupor. I inevitably got on the train with a headache and upset stomach just from trying to get my skis from the entrance of the station to the train.
The train ride itself was more misery. My sister and I attended a Catholic private school for young ladies. In my view, boys were something that made you nervous, period. The idea of talking to them in a friendly fashion was no more possible to me then, in 1958, the idea that we might put a man on the moon.
My sister, on the other hand, was wonderfully athletic and pretty. She had dark hair and eyes and unbelievable eyelashes. Her athletic ability made her more comfortable with everybody.
I was brown haired and blue eyed. Next to her, I felt like she was the original and I was the faded-out copy. I was attractive only to children and the down-trodden and oppressed. I sat either with the Clearasil rejects or a crowd of tiny, tiny children who all thought I was wonderful.
This was okay until we went through the tunnels. There were three tunnels on the way to Winter Park and they were black holes of iniquity. Much early teen social experience was gained during those blackouts. On the one hand, I would have collapsed in a morbid embarrassment if someone would have actually kissed me during those thrilling moments; on the other hand, it made the fact that I was sitting with second graders even more humiliating.
Winter Park was the scene of some of the most trying moments of my life. With every class that you advanced, you gained a ribbon to sew on the sleeve of your parka under your Eskimo Club patch. My sleeve wore a green beginners patch for almost three years. My sister’s sleeve flowered with yellow, red, purple and blue patches. All the colors they offered. Part of my problem was that I had such an awful time going that I faked illness as often as I could.
I was also a terrible skier. I hated the glossy, perfect ski instructors. I hated snow. I hated cold. And most of all, I hated falling down. And I fell down constantly.
My sister, of course, fell down also, but she got right back up on her horse, so to speak, and went down the most fabulous slopes. I stayed with an ever-changing crowd of second graders until one day when one of them cursed me.
I was trying to ride up the rope tow. I held tightly onto the swirling demon of rope that was whizzing past me, and planted my skis firmly in the foot deep ruts, and prepared to be hurled to the top. But my ski came out of the track and they had to stop the tow for me to regain my footing. The little boy behind me started calling me names—and that was it. I quit.
I look back on the Eskimo Club and cringe. When I was about 30, I finally decided that I didn’t care anymore about what people though. I got myself some men’s overalls and blithely three my falling clumsy body down the slopes along with the neon clad wonder shushing smoothly along beside me.
But I never fit in. I’ll never really belong the Eskimo Clubs of this world, I’ll never become one of the heedless, confident giants that glide smoothly down paths. I’ll always be a faller-downer.
But, the secret is that there are more faller-downers than there are smooth shushers on the ski slopes of life.
And, in actual fact, if the truth be known, we rule the world.
December 10, 1991
Every winter Saturday morning, my younger sister and I would pile into the back seat of our black, 55 Chrysler with the pale blue seats, and my dad would whisk us downtown through Denver’s cold, bleak, empty early morning streets for the Eskimo Club.
He used to brag that he was blind in one eye and couldn’t see out of the other one, it was definite that he was blind in one eye—he has a glass eye. And the other one had a big scar across the middle from a childhood accident, and he truly didn’t see very well from it.
Mary and I would grab each others hands and squeeze tight, hoping we’d get to the train station alive. Behind us we’d hear horns honking and brakes squealing, but as my dad would also brag, he was never in an accident and had never had a ticket.
He also smoked cigars, and as we sat in terror, we struggled to breathe. We were not allowed to comment on my dad’s cigar. We’d cough occasionally, discreetly, and if it wasn’t too cold, we’d crack the window slightly. But my dad considered that children were to be seen and not heard—and they were certainly not the arbiters of his smoking habits.
The Eskimo Club represented to me the height of all that was miserable. The train waited to take literally hundreds of rowdy, joking, heedless children up to Winter Park to learn how to ski.
I was a chubby, big-footed, unathletic preteen who couldn’t even carry her skis confidently. It was an act of supreme coordination for me to get them to go on my shoulder without braining myself to a stupor. I inevitably got on the train with a headache and upset stomach just from trying to get my skis from the entrance of the station to the train.
The train ride itself was more misery. My sister and I attended a Catholic private school for young ladies. In my view, boys were something that made you nervous, period. The idea of talking to them in a friendly fashion was no more possible to me then, in 1958, the idea that we might put a man on the moon.
My sister, on the other hand, was wonderfully athletic and pretty. She had dark hair and eyes and unbelievable eyelashes. Her athletic ability made her more comfortable with everybody.
I was brown haired and blue eyed. Next to her, I felt like she was the original and I was the faded-out copy. I was attractive only to children and the down-trodden and oppressed. I sat either with the Clearasil rejects or a crowd of tiny, tiny children who all thought I was wonderful.
This was okay until we went through the tunnels. There were three tunnels on the way to Winter Park and they were black holes of iniquity. Much early teen social experience was gained during those blackouts. On the one hand, I would have collapsed in a morbid embarrassment if someone would have actually kissed me during those thrilling moments; on the other hand, it made the fact that I was sitting with second graders even more humiliating.
Winter Park was the scene of some of the most trying moments of my life. With every class that you advanced, you gained a ribbon to sew on the sleeve of your parka under your Eskimo Club patch. My sleeve wore a green beginners patch for almost three years. My sister’s sleeve flowered with yellow, red, purple and blue patches. All the colors they offered. Part of my problem was that I had such an awful time going that I faked illness as often as I could.
I was also a terrible skier. I hated the glossy, perfect ski instructors. I hated snow. I hated cold. And most of all, I hated falling down. And I fell down constantly.
My sister, of course, fell down also, but she got right back up on her horse, so to speak, and went down the most fabulous slopes. I stayed with an ever-changing crowd of second graders until one day when one of them cursed me.
I was trying to ride up the rope tow. I held tightly onto the swirling demon of rope that was whizzing past me, and planted my skis firmly in the foot deep ruts, and prepared to be hurled to the top. But my ski came out of the track and they had to stop the tow for me to regain my footing. The little boy behind me started calling me names—and that was it. I quit.
I look back on the Eskimo Club and cringe. When I was about 30, I finally decided that I didn’t care anymore about what people though. I got myself some men’s overalls and blithely three my falling clumsy body down the slopes along with the neon clad wonder shushing smoothly along beside me.
But I never fit in. I’ll never really belong the Eskimo Clubs of this world, I’ll never become one of the heedless, confident giants that glide smoothly down paths. I’ll always be a faller-downer.
But, the secret is that there are more faller-downers than there are smooth shushers on the ski slopes of life.
And, in actual fact, if the truth be known, we rule the world.
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