MOUNTAIN OF MEMORIES— Artwork, Easter and skiing all day
Published: 01-23-2025 1:02 PM |
Last of a series of excerpts from Gerry Miller’s book “Crotched Mountain Ski Area in Francestown, New Hampshire,” a history/biography about the original Crotched Mountain Ski Area in Francestown, developed by William C. (Bill) MacAdam and syndicate. Miller grew up in Francestown. Much of the material for the book was from the Monadnock Ledger or Peterborough Transcript.
I was taking the chair to the top alone and looking back at the view. A little before the chair crosses the trail going to No. 1, the kid in the chair right behind me lifts up his safety bar and I start seeing him inch forward in the chair. I thought, “That is odd,” and then he slips out of the chair and intentionally falls the 20 feet or more, gets up and skis down No. 2. I was astonished. It was Mrs. Hatchett’s youngest son (I think youngest.) She told me herself that that was her son. Quite remarkable he didn’t break something.
My mother drew some “Cymbolics” that were hung in the lodge. These were stylized cartoons of black lines and patches of color that depicted scenes on a ski hill.
I started skiing around 1964... and found the lifts terrifying at first. When I got older the long lift lines became social hangouts for us, where we kids would ski forward and backwards in the lines, talking and fooling around, a pack of ski rats. We rode the T bar like a hobby horse, but usually took the chair. It was a point of honor to not put the safety bar down. The lift attendants would throw snowballs at us and tease us. I was a little in love with most of them at one time or another, I think.
We got dropped off at 8:30 a.m. and picked up after the lifts closed. I think we got 50 cents for lunch. I remember skiing until I had ice cubes on my eyelashes and my cheeks turned white.
Every Wednesday, we got out of school early and went to the mountain for ski lessons. My mom would get nine kids and all of our ski equipment into her Jeep.
Ingrid and John Miller live in Hampstead, N.H., and Punta Gorda, Fla. They met at Crotched Mountain in the early days. John was a pioneer in freestyle skiing at Crotched, long before terrain parks.
Crotched Mountain Ski Area is where my husband and I met. My father, Dick Luscomber, created the Ski Patrol along with Peewe Wipple, Don Hall, Zeke Beernaert, Mac McQueeny and others. My mother, Eunice, organized social gatherings and Easter was always a special day.
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We loved Easter. They would make an igloo and put kegs of beer in it. You filled your cup at the bottom of the lift and then again at the top. We skied down the slalom course and the one with the most beer still in their cup, at the bottom, won.
I used to ski seven days a week during high school unless I had a basketball game. I brought books home one day after school, and Mom said I obviously had homework and wouldn’t let me go the mountain that day. I quit bringing books home.
I skied before school for a while, hitching rides up on the snow cat at dawn. Worked for quite a while until someone found out and then everyone wanted to do it.
Mom hated when I started doing flips. She always covered her eyes, so never saw a jump.
My earliest memories include lace-up boots, wooden skis with cable bindings and wool mittens. If there was snow on the ground, we went to the mountain and stayed all day.