The Ski Journal • Volume 17, Issue 1 • WAITING FOR UNCLE FRANK

Tyler Sterling doing the Ski Bag Shuffle inside the airport in Zürich, Switzerland. Photo: Lee Cohen

Uncle Frank drove us to the mountain directly from the airport. After he left us, we pictured his arrival at our hotel. Uncle Frank would find a row of people waiting for the concierge, held up by an understaffed front desk. He would be excited to see the line. Its length and speed would soothe him; it would be long and slow. He’d be eighth in turn. Number seven would be a man, and Uncle Frank would wait for him to turn, commenting on those giving the concierges a hard time.

Party number seven would tell Uncle Frank why he was not on the slopes because Uncle Frank would ask, but later Uncle Frank would be unable to recount it to us. We, of course, can recount his own reason. We’ve heard the tale in lodge bars, office and birthday parties, general stores, across gas pumps, and at Thanksgivings, Christmases, and Easters. He did not ski as a child, learned as an adult, never felt sure on two planks, hurt his back 10 years ago, recovered nine years ago, started to ski again eight years ago, hurt his back again five years ago, and though he recovered, never skied after that. The story rarely varied, but he did cycle through a set of conclusions. Sometimes the mountains were too crowded anyway. Sometimes most traffic patterns through most parking lots to most drop-off and pickup areas were inexcusably flawed. Sometimes it was the price of food in the lodges. Sometimes he was too frustrated when his family missed first chair or left before last. They were better off skiing without him, he’d say. He took it too seriously.

Party number seven would become party number six. Uncle Frank would lift his luggage, step closer to party number six, and make one of his surest assessments.

Each afternoon, shuttling us all back to the hotel in our ski boots, Uncle Frank relayed specifics of his day to us as we caught up with our phones. He had explained to concierges why he “wasn’t up there,” after they, in vain, shared their knowledge of non-skiing activities. In the hotel hot tubs, he bemoaned the American West’s paucity of top-shelf rum to the corporate men and women he met, suggesting that this drought was due to the exhaustion of the North Atlantic cod fisheries. Having just read the book Cod, he now knew that all events and circumstances were contingent upon the catch of New England long-liners. And he had early drinks at empty bars.

We were on vacation for a week, but a few days in, Uncle Frank sunk into an uncharacteristic quietude. We stopped hearing about the men and women visiting for conferences. There were no more fun barback facts about the history of the building and its many guests. We were not asked about our favorite runs. He forgot Cod’s epiphanies, or at least stopped relaying them.

He was late, a few times, which happened on occasion on all our trips, as he’d lose time to idle chitchat. But each time Aunt Elizabeth called him, he seemed to be watching some sort of nature program. Faint wind, slow water, birds. Another male voice, steady but unintelligible in the background. “Be right there,” he’d say. Then he’d hang up.

Turbulence woke us in the two rows behind Uncle Frank. Closer to cockpit, someone was speaking in an inobtrusive voice. Uncle Frank, rarely quiet, was almost whispering.

He was describing the inanity of the route from the mountain to main road, and how one day he was forced to turn around in a dirt satellite lot. He heard running water, he said, parked the car, and saw that a stream flowed out of a culvert and continued beyond the row of vehicles on the far side of the lot, which, though it was early in the morning, was nearly full. Downstream, a man in waders crouched over a long fishing rod, disinterested in the mountain and its snaking lift lines and frenetic ski schools.

He thought about calling to the man, but drove to the hotel instead, asking the concierge where he could rent fishing gear. The man was still on the meander when he returned to the river and they fished together for three days. He told the passenger trapped to his left that he didn’t ski anymore, and we waited for his routine, but instead he softly concluded that he didn’t quite miss it. Its absence afforded him time to fish and a “rare silence” he had come to appreciate.

Aunt Elizabeth, turbulence roused and now fully awake alongside us had had enough. “You’ve come to appreciate what?”

The Ski Journal - Volume 17, Issue 1

WAITING FOR UNCLE FRANK

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