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2020/2021 Ski Day 1: Underwood Hill

The Boston area got some snow the night of October 30th: two to three inches in parts!

I awoke early Halloween morning deadset on skiing a small hill near my home: Underwood Hill, which leads down to the Underwood Pool (which a few years ago replaced its namesake, the first public swimming pool in the United States). As I loaded the car with skis and boots, the words to Billy Joel’s You May Be Right played through my head: I may be crazy. I knew that when I returned home, and my wife woke up, she would just shake her head and sigh.

A family arrived with sleds at just about the same time I did, and the Mom gave me a thumbs up as I proceeded with my ridiculous suburban ski adventure.

Underwood Hill, Belmont MA

After six laps I had gotten about as much satisfaction as I think that hill could deliver.

So that was my first outing of the new, still uncertain ski season. Six laps of a forty-one-foot-vertical hill.

It’s gotta be all up from here.

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Link of the Day

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Bittersweet

I usually do my “Ski Day” write-ups a few days after the trip. Sometimes I procrastinate and a week or two goes by.

I waited over four months to do the last post, though, because the sudden end to the 2019/2020 ski season — and the brutal arrival of COVID-19 — was such a shock.

I skied on a Friday, and by the following Sunday I was bedridden, with a cough, a headache, a mild fever and aching muscles. I still don’t know if it was the seasonal flu or COVID-19, but whatever it was wasn’t any fun, and kept me in bed for most of a week.

How did I get whatever it was I had? Was it the friendly barkeep at the pub I’d eaten at (he insisted on shaking every patron’s hand)? Maybe some of the college kids I’d shared a gondola cabin with? I’ll never know. Hand-shaking and cabin-sharing seem otherworldly now, or quaint, or maybe foolish.

I expect things will be different next season, if there is lift-served skiing at all. I’ve bought a pair of snow shoes just in case…