The Pittsburgh Press (February 12, 1942)
Rambling Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
PORTLAND, Ore. – The skiing is over, and I’m sorry. For now I’m nuts about it. The whole “feeling” of the thing came all of a sudden, just as they said it would.
You stumble along for days, getting more and more discouraged, and sensing no harmony whatever with those encumbering boards on your feet. And then all n at once, like a flash, comes that marvelous feeling of release.
The skis, instead of being shackles, suddenly become something to help you and speed you along. As Olaf said, “It’s a wonderful sensation when you finally can make them do what you want them to.”
I think this week has taught me a few things more than just how to stand up on skis.
I’ve discovered, for one thing, what a completely exerciseless life I ordinarily lead. Why, after the agonies, of sore muscles had finally worn off, I felt better than I’d felt in years. I even gained weight up there at Timberline.
I learned also that you can do things when you’re face to face with the necessity for doing them. For instance, the instructors said I undoubtedly learned more about skiing in that one try down the mountain yesterday than I would have in two months of practicing on our safe little one. That’s because you can do things when you have to.
Theory might not work
But I’m not sure that should be set up as a standard theory of life. Here I go again, always thinking up exceptions to the perfect rules. For instance, if you couldn’t play the piano, yet had to sit down and play the piano in order to save your life, could you do it! Of course you couldn’t. Well, it was a good theory while it lasted, anyway.
But most important of all the things I learned is something which I suppose better sportsmen than myself know by instinct – and that is that a person works hardest, fights best, plays more gaily, even is braver, when he has companionship.
In the last two years – due to the urgencies of war living and the illness of That Girl and some other things – I have learned what it is to be alone. I have at last come to know the terror of being afraid by yourself – either in the vain little torture of embarrassment, or in the gigantic fright of thinking you are about to die.
Today, at last, I know that no man except a freak is able to stand absolutely alone. I know that if I am to be bombed to death, I want somebody with me. If I am by events placed in a dramatic position, it comes to nothing unless there is someone I love on hand to appreciate it. If I am rollicking in the snow, it is no fun at all unless some friend is beside me, to fall down with me grotesquely so that the two of us can laugh together.
Old friends save the day
And it was thus that my odd skiing interlude was saved in the end. It was saved by the arrival of two people I knew and could be natural with – E. J. Griffith, who is administrator of WPA for Oregon, and Mrs. Dexter Keezer, whom I have known for half my lifetime.
I must tell you about Anne Keezer, for she is quite a fellow. Her husband is president of Reed College out here and has just been given an important job in Washington. Her stepfather is Lowell Mellett, of Mr. Roosevelt’s “inner circle.” And she herself is the mother of two lovely and incorrigible little girls.
Annie Keezer is a whirlwind of animation, exaggeration and headlongism. She sews and knits and skates and skis and rides and reads and entertains and takes charge of things all over the place, because she has to let her spirit out into something. She boils and effervesces and gesticulates. She is probably the most enthusiastic conversationalist I’ve ever heard. The best yarn that ever happened isn’t half as good as when Anne finishes telling it.
All of which is just a build-up to what happened on our final afternoon of skiing. We were plunging down Timberline’s famous “Magic Mile.” Anne was skiing ahead of us, turning and exploring the white mist of falling snow.
And suddenly Annie disappeared. This second she was here, the next second she was gone. It was as though a magician had gone “poof” – and she vanished into thin air.
What happened was that Annie had simply skied right over a 20-foot precipice. She flew a vast distance through the air, lit on her head, and wasn’t hurt at all. She said she had no sensation of falling, and when she got her head out of the snowdrift she couldn’t think where she was.