A SUGARBUSH LOVE STORY
Early 1964 was bitterly cold along I-90 in upstate New York. The Beatles “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” was in the midst of a seven-week run as number one song on American Top 40. NASA’s Ranger 7 spacecraft snapped and transmitted back home the first close-up photographs of the Moon. American Douglas Engelbart invented the first computer mouse, while fellow Americans George Kemeny and Thomas Eugene Kurtz created and ran the first computer program in BASIC, at the time the first high-level programming language. The U.S. Surgeon General released the blockbuster report linking smoking to cancer, while Lyndon Johnson achieved landmark political milestones by passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and declaring “War on Poverty.”
Meanwhile John, a dashing, handsome attorney and World War II hero, and his best girl, Jean, a comely and effervescent young telephone operator were once again headed to Sugarbush with the rest of their ski club for the group’s annual week-long trip. How resplendent they looked for the gala ball the evening before skiing started – John wearing his silver Tyrolia Ski Club pin, while Jean proudly wore the silver and diamond brooch of two crossed skis with “Whiteface” emblazoned across it. They were a dazzling couple as they deftly sashayed their way around the dance floor.
John was the skier of the pair. He was a strong skier before he enlisted and served under Patton in Europe. But years in the Oberammagau region of Austria during and after the war turned “strong” into “gifted”. For the rest of his life, his form and technique was described as Baryshnikov’s ballet on skis.
Jaws dropped to the sidewalk watching John ski, even well into his 70s.
Jean, however, skied for the sake of her boyfriend. And for some of her girlfriends too, but John was her true reason for being at Sugarbush, the party scene aside.
John’s modus operandi for the week was always the same. In the morning, he would ski with the rest of the club and eat lunch with them in the lodge. But in the afternoon, only John and his buddy Joe Mercurio were talented enough to tackle Castlerock. And shred it they would! The two of them spiritedly bounded through the moguls of Middle Earth, fairly danced down the narrow, rocky steps of the Lift Line, and zoomed effortlessly through the cascades of Castlerock Run and Rumble.
John was every bit the equal of some of Sugarbush’s instructors at the time, and is likely to have ridden the chair with many of the Europeans and even with the young Egans at some time during his many years of patronizing Sugarbush – his undoubted favorite resort, even though Whiteface was John’s home mountain.
And so it was that on one of the many annual trips that the club took to Sugarbush, on the Friday afternoon, before everyone would pile into the bus for the four-hour drive home, John and Joe took leave of the lunch table and headed to Castlerock for a few last spectacular rips.
And no sooner were they airborne on the chairlift when they heard a mighty ruckus behind them. Voices shouting callooing and callaying like dodo birds…what the heck? So, they turned around to look.
It was Jean and seven of her snow bunny friends. They are already on the chairlift, they ignored every sign that said “Experts only,” and now – completely oblivious to what they’ve just done – they’re waving to the boys like daffy looky-loos.
“HI JOHN!” “HI JOE!” “HI JOHN!” “HI JOE!”
“GET OFF HALFWAY!”
The shouts came back in an instant. Mildly panicked as it were, because eight rookie snow bunnies have no business being remotely near Castlerock, let alone trying to ski down it. Just what they needed for the last runs of the day! Noobs on Castlerock! They didn’t have the word “Jerry” back then, nor “Jerry of the Day,” but it appeared the girls were about to become the prototype for the metaphor as well as scud attack the last session of the ski trip.
“HI JOHN!” “HI JOE!” “HI JOHN!” “HI JOE!”
“GET OFF HALFWAY! WE WILL COME GET YOU! GET OFF HALFWAY!”
They didn’t.
One reason may be that John and Joe were going to the summit and planned to ski down the lift line to rescue the ladies who would presumably stay right where they were warned to. But when the girls saw the boys did not get off halfway, (like they had instructed the girls to do), they either panicked – perhaps thinking that since the boys didn’t get off, they didn’t want to get separated from either the guys or each other – or they disobeyed. Either way, they blew past every sign at Castlerock warning them not to do exactly what they were doing. They even blew past the sign at the halfway point that says something like, “WE REALLY FRIGGIN’ MEAN IT! IF YOU’RE NOT AN EXPERT GET THE HELL OFF RIGHT NOW!”
I might not have that exactly perfect, but it’s close enough for jazz.
So, when eight ladies disembarked at the top. John simply looked at them, said, “Okay, everyone follow me,” and took off full steam down Rumble with Joe.
And the boys didn’t stop until they got on the bus.
Three and a half hours later, cracked skis, twisted poles, busted bindings, and angry women boarded the bus. Yes, it took the eight of them that long to get down by themselves.
Joe and John were in the back of the bus with newspapers over their faces, pretending to read.
The following spring John and Jean eloped to Elkton, Maryland for a whirlwind ceremony. Back then Elkton was the Shotgun Wedding Capitol of the USA before Vegas, and John stole Jean from her possible marriage to another guy with three weeks to go!. Don’t worry – Dad just wanted to be an incurable romantic, and Mom was all about that. I was born two-and-a-half years later.
They remained together for 53 years of wedded bliss, until John’s passing in 2018. Jean stole the show at their 50th anniversary party, looking as glamorous as she did at the Sugarbush gala.
“I can’t be live how fast 50 years went by,” she sighed.
