The Pittsburgh Press (February 9, 1942)
Rambling Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
TIMBERLINE LODGE, Ore. – Skiing is hard work. The altitude is high and the exercise violent. You use a great many muscles you never knew you had. Long-unused muscles get mighty sore.
Skiing consists about as much in being in good physical condition as it does in skill. My skill at the present writing is hidden under some obscure bushel. And my physical perfection would undoubtedly take the booby prize of Oregon. Why, if I happen to walk swiftly across the room after a cigarette, I have lumbago the next day.
So you can imagine what a pitiful, broken thing all this violent skiing exercise has made of me. Even standing real still in the lobby the first few days was a bodily agony.
But fortunately I kept right at it, and didn’t let my tortured muscles get “set.” I kept them working. And now at last I’m beginning to get conditioned. Finally the aches have begun to abate; my wobbly ankles have strength in them now; I throb with such new inner energy that I stand before a mirror and twitch my arms, admiring myself.
A soft fellow really does begin to feel strong after a few days of this. Skiing would add years to the health of any office-sitter. I’m aware again that I’ve got something in my Wrists and shoulders besides soup. Even my shiny scalp feels muscular.
I believe today I could knock the average woman down with ease.
He earns his ski clothes
It’s funny how your feeling about yourself changes as you progress with your skiing.
Most people stay in their ski-clothes all day; eat in them and sit around the lounge in them. But I was so self-conscious about mine I’d go change before coming back to eat.
I felt this way – here’s a guy who falls down while standing perfectly still on skis, so isn’t he a fine spectacle parading around the hotel in ski clothes?
But on the third day I thought to myself, “Well, now I’ve been out there trying and working as hard as anybody, and not falling down any more than some others I could mention. I guess I’ve earned my ski clothes now, so I’ll just wear them all the time, too.” So I’m doing it, and I feel as nonchalant as a man lighting a Murad.
You see some of the oddest skiing outfits up here. As in golf, the snazziest outfits usually don’t belong to the best skiers. You can ski in almost anything.
This morning I saw one boy (a good one, too) skiing around bareheaded and in a grotesquely long overcoat. And a girl skiing in shorts, her legs bare.
I rented my ski-pants from the Lodge’s ski-shop, in the hip pocket I found the slip made out to the fellow who had them before. His name was Dick Rathbun.
St. Bernards just ornaments
The slip didn’t say what success Dick had in the struggle to remain perpendicular. When I turn in my clothes I’m leaving a note in the hip pocket, warning the next innocent renter to demand a different pair of pants. It’s impossible to stand up in these.
Practically everybody who skis wears dark glasses or goggles, or a cap with a dark isinglass shield suspended from the bill – for the glare of the sun on the snow is often blinding.
Also, friends had warned me to put on lots of sunburn lotion, for the reflection of the sun on the snow is a treacherous thing, and people actually get so badly sunburned in one day they have to go to a doctor.
But I was anxious to get sunburned, for I’ve lost all my good New Mexico cowboy color. So I skied with my sock-cap pushed way back on my head, in order to get lots of sun. And so far I haven’t burned even faintly. I still look like a hothouse flower.
I’ve been hoping I might get lost in the snow, so they’d have to send a St. Bernard after me, with a keg of rum strapped under his neck.
The Lodge has two St. Bernards, named Bruhl and Lady. They are the most stupendous dogs I ever saw. Somebody gave them to the Lodge when they were pups, about four years ago.
But even if I did get lost, the St. Bernards probably wouldn’t come after me. For they are merely ornaments. They love to be fed and petted. They just lie around all day. The ski instructors say they’re so lazy they wouldn’t get up out of the snow themselves. I’d sure like to have one, though.