Ski Trip(James brown) My life, has changed based on small decisions, deemed unimportant when made, that skewed my life's course unexpectedly to my present situation.

During 1962, during my senior year at Santa Clara High School, I made one of those decisions. Against the advice of my school counselor, Mr. Duncan, I took the American College Testing, (ACT), exam.

He’d explained I wasn't college material which my grades attested to. I was never in the California Scholastic Federation, (CSF). They got pins to wear on their school sweaters for being smart. Instead, my sweater was emblazoned with the athletic block letters, “SCH” on which a little football was stitched.

Mr. Duncan’s recommendation was, I apply to San Jose Community College and enroll in their excellent auto shop repair program.

When the schools ACT test results were sent to him, I was called from my chemistry class to his office for my test results review. After I sat, he stared at me oddly, then broke an extended silence and said,

“Jim, your test results were unexpected. Go back to your class, review the numbers and you can see for yourself.”

Back it the classroom, I opened the little grades package and saw the highest score was only 35 in science and the lowest was 28 in English, all documentation he was correct, I wasn’t college material.

I knew I had poor grades, hung around the academic losers, but scores so low they didn’t get a sniff of being a “D”, depressed me. Most of my grades were “Cs” with an occasional “D” or “B”.

While Mr. Wright, my chemistry teacher, droned on about Mendeleev’s Periodic Table of Elements, I started to read how to interpret the test score numbers. Depression evaporated as I converted the little numbers into percentiles. 35 was above the 99 percentile in science of those who took the exam. Even lowly 28 was in the 80 percentile. The final result was I’d gotten the highest ACT score of my school.

So it was, suddenly I could go to a college, a lot of them. Despite the test scores, however, was the issue of money. My father was a blue-collar worker at a company that made labels for local canneries. We didn’t live on the wrong side of the tracks but were close enough I could hear the steam engines in the early morning chugging out of Santa Clara’s little railroad station.

My only financial option was to go to San Jose State College. It didn’t have tuition back then.

In addition to my ACT scores, its only other requirement was 12 Semester Bs”. My wood shop classes gave me the minimum semester "B"s" to be accepted.

Once in SJS, I worked menial jobs at Almaden Winery, Treat Ice Cream and Libby’s cannery but mostly at Frontier Village amusement park operating rides and cleaning the grounds with a broom and dustpan.

In my sophomore year, San Jose State College’s ski club offered a super four-day discount ski trip, including busing, lodging, and lift tickets at Heavenly Valley, California, the location of the 1960’s Winter Olympics.

I’d visited the area three years previously while still in high school. Combined with the beauty of Lake Tahoe, it was an opportunity to good to miss. I dipped into meager savings and signed up for the trip.

I rented cheap skis and boots at Santa Clara’s Sporting Goods. My attire didn’t attract pretty Co-Ed’s. I wore an old army cap a friend gave me with fold down edge to protect my protruding ears, an old army coat, and Levi’s with long johns underneath. I didn’t buy gloves or googles. My skis and boot proclaimed me a novice.

After the first day being jerked up on a rope tow and learning to somewhat control my ski descent by using the snowplow technique, it was off to the bunny hills.

Skis back then were a lot more dangerous with the knock offs from falls problematic. I tasted a lot of snow but always got back up. I relied on the advice of the guy who rented me the skis.

"When you get out of control, lean back, and fall on your butt.”

By the third day, it was time for the difficult runs.

The trip was so cheap because it was an attempt to get students into skiing. Hard to believe, but back then the slopes needed to attract more skiers. Too many were afraid to ski due to injury risk.

More than half the students on the bus were females. They, of course were there for the athletic, good looking, frat boys. This meant they had to ski the upper slopes where the action was. They, like me, were novices and after a day on the rope tow they advanced to the steeper slopes where the frat boys hung out. As a result, by the time the bus returned to SJS almost half were on crutches, including some males.

I helped contribute to the Co-Ed carnage. On an upper slope, at a sharp turn, a one was laying straddled on the snow with two ski patrol skiers providing first aid.

As I barreled down, out of control, they looked up and saw the shoddy attired ski zombie streaming toward them and abandoned the girl. It was too late to fall on my butt to avoid a collision onto her. Being a gentleman, I managed a little control and avoided her head and torso and snowplowed over her twisted legs.

I heard her shrill scream as I barreled over her and then through the trees off the designated ski area. Finally coming to my senses, I dropped down on my butt into a snowbank and avoided the eventual cliff. I can still her her screams in a deep memory bank in old age.

I never was a good skier. Instead, I became a family man skier and took kids and wife on ski trips once relocated in Oregon. While not of the penury status of my college days, to take a family is not cheap. I never acquired fancy ski attire but did buy skis, googles, and gloves. I still fell on my Levi’s clad butt when becoming out of control down the slope.

Soon I drifted into more of a ski lodge dweller than skier once snowboarding became popular which just isn’t the same. Now, I have grandchildren who fly off to ski, Oregon, Utah, Colorado, and even once Heavenly Valley. They are all excellent skiers and have the fancy gear and attire to fit in. None are a ski zombie like I once was.

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