One of the great things about living in your hometown is seeing your children forming some of the same memories you forged when you were young. The paths of their youth are steps in many of the same places where you walked.
As winter draws to a close, I reflect on one of my favorite activities — skiing. It is a sport I have gladly shared with my own children. What will always bind us as skiers is our hometown hill, Tussey Mountain.
My love affair with skiing started in the seventh grade when Stan Hamilton — a family friend and the father of three Penn State players — taught me to ski at Tussey Mountain. There was a larger mission behind the day on the slopes — Stan was active in championing civil rights and ministering to the homeless, and he used skiing to get our attention. Time waiting in line for the lift and riding up the hill was for talking about the bigger issues.
Lessons learned on skiing and life will always be with me even though Stan has died. Every time I buckle up my ski boots, I think about him.
As the years have passed, I’ve been fortunate to ski all over North America at great places — Vail, Stowe, Squaw Valley, Beaver Creek, Steamboat Springs — as well as great Canadian resorts like Tremblant and Whistler, the site of this year’s Olympics.
Those trips and many more represent some of the best days of my life. But while all those places are incredible, there is nothing quite like your hometown hill.
A lot of time has passed since I took off straight down the beginner slope without turning and wiped out to stop at the bottom of the hill. Despite all the years, every time I drive out there, it is familiar. Recurring places in your life stir always up memories, and visits to Tussey Mountain are no different.
The beginnings were humbler. Tussey Mountain had a rope tow for the beginner area and a T-Bar for the rest of the area. There were three trails. In high school the big news was the addition of the ‘Quad’ chairlift that seemed so futuristic. That low-speed quad seems almost quaint and rustic now.
Humble though it was, it was mine. I started delivering newspapers to save up enough money to buy my own gear, including a used pair of K2 skis from my friend.
In high school, if I kept my grades up and my homework was done, I’d get out to ski two school nights a week. Weekends were spent skiing as well. (My mother was probably happy to have me out of the house.)
We’d ski through the snow guns’ spray and emerge with jackets, hats and faces covered by an icy Teflon-like coating (back then, NO ONE wore helmets). One warm December night we had a weird fog and through the lights it looked like aliens gliding and turning through the haze. I can still see Andy Dutton — a very good skier — skiing through the fog and face-planting into a big mogul. We always saw friends and people we knew.
A high school friend who moved here from Denver used to tell us how great it was to be able to be on the slopes in 15 minutes and see friends from school. We took that as quite an endorsement from someone who had skied Vail and Aspen.
In college I took skiing for some of the required physical education credits. One hour of lesson time followed by skiing until the place closed — who knew you could get a grade for this? There were dates in college I took skiing out there as well, but for that I usually I got no credit. In the summer I took dates out there to watch the sun set across the pond and over State College.
Now I ski to think, to clear my head and to challenge myself. I ski to be with my family. As I ski with my kids at Tussey Mountain, they see many of their school friends. They still want to ski with me now, but when they reach middle school they’ll ditch me for their friends and wish that I wasn’t along.
This winter as I stood atop the mountain, I looked down and saw all the houses in Bear Meadows and the Mount Nittany Expressway stretching through neighborhoods and buildings that did not exist the first time I stood atop the mountain.
A lot has changed, but what hasn’t is the feel of the place. With another ski season drawing to a close, and as we move into spring, I again reflect on the constant march of time. What I love about my hometown hill is that it remains fairly constant.
The slopes I skied remain and I’m a kid again as I rip through the snow much like I did when I was younger. Only on my hometown hill.
