Whittoons

Our last night on the trek in the wagon across America, did not start out well. The sun had set and we were late in locating out campground, Dad took a wrong turn on the way to the campsite. Once he realized the error in reading the map in the dark, we were on a single lane road climbing up the mountain…with no space to turn around. Mom was on the outside looking down…way down into the valley below. She did not like heights. She was not happy. It did not help that we kept pointing out the distant, tiny lights way below.

No way to back down with the trailer. There was nothing to do but keep heading up. And UP. And UP. We were doomed.

Finally we reached the end of the road at a fire tower. And there was room to turn around. We were saved.

On my safe return to the family, the group was very relieved. In appreciation, Dad gave me one slap on the butt for all my pathfinding. I was so confused. I thought I had done the right thing in heading from the point of no return to our last known place of contact. But I guess I was guilty of abandoning the team when it faced the insurmountable odds of survival. Next time I would speak out and rally the troops. All for One and One for All.

On a yearly basis, as we approach Easter, I move from drawing two dimensional cartoon characters to molding three dimensional characters inspired from film and literature. The egg is the fundamental building block for these creatures…carefully blown eggs.

Originally I used boiled eggs. Big Mistake. My wife took one to work for a show and tell. On the bus home, the character exploded. Not pretty.

In blowing eggs, I also learned not to bust a gut. After drilling fine holes at both ends of the egg with a needle-like implement, blowing out the fluid was an ear popping experience that brought stars to my eyes…and often led to cracked eggs and a gross mess. I found the right tool – a baby nasal aspirator that does wonders extracting the egg yolk and whites.

Each year I have searched the papers and internet for popular cartoon films, looking for my muse egg or two, waiting for some characters to speak to me. I heeded the call, “To Infinity and Beyond!”, “My Precious!”, “Oh, I am detecting nuttiness.”, “We’re all mad here.”, among other catchy phrases. If there is a theme, I might do two or three characters from the same film.

Given that certain nieces and nephews loved the creations, I started making duplicates so that my own cast of characters might surround me in my studio, posing in my muse gallery.

Some of my egg creations met grim fates in their adopted homes, crashing like Humpty Dumpty due to the over exuberance of a child handler. So as the kids have grown older, I have hoarded the creations for myself.

I Am the EggMan, Goo goo g’joob.

They say there is no looking back. But after my mad dash, and inspired by Davy to vanquish the creatures, I turned.

Nothing. They had vanished. Perhaps my deadly stare turned them to stone. Or Bear’s GROWL had sent them scurrying back into the Ocean.

Forget fight.. this was all flight. If this was Survival Of The Fittest, I was going to rely on my homing instinct and track our footprints back to the car and where we last saw the adults.

I heard the crunching gravel as the creatures pursued me on turgid tails and slimy arms. Their putrid, hot breath exhaled with malice aforethought made me choke as I gasped for salty air. At this terrific pace, I did not know how long my adrenaline rush would last. My muscles burned.

I called upon the spirt of Davy Crockett to give me strength so I could outrun my pursuers. After all, I was in my element. They were not in theirs.

Each time I ski along the River Run trail, along the Methow River and across from the rugged Goat Wall, I yodel. I listen for the echo and seem to hear my father’s voice in the mountains yodeling back.

Dad was avid skier and a master at yodeling. He taught me to ski. He taught to yodel, though I have never achieved his power in projecting the voice to resounding effects. When he enlisted with the 10th Mountain Infantry (where he trained troops to ski on Mt Rainier before heading off to WWII), he joined fellow soldiers to form a choral group up at Paradise Lodge. (He went from Paradise to join the “Devil’s Brigade” in Italy.) One of the songs in their repertoire was “Two Boards Upon Cold Powder Snow”. I have the refrain lodged in my memory bank and it pops to the surface when I slide through crisp, cold air along beautiful tracks or plunge down slopes. (And yes, I realize the line “Two boards upon cold, powder snow, that’s all that a man needs to know…” is a bit dated and sexist. I can not cancel a fond link to a man I loved. Others can rewrite the refrain as appropriate.)

We managed to yodel in the Canadian Rockies (on a Canadian Mountain Holidays ski tour), the Green Mountains (at Stowe and Smugglers Notch), in Iran and Afghanistan.

In the photos above, my father is the guy standing in dark blue with me (in the Michelin Man orange coat), and he is making his graceful turns on the slope. You may note, I also inherited his love of Ray Ban sunglasses.

Though Dad became very ill in his late 70’s, he was determined to write an autobiography For The Love of Skiing and have it self-published. He asked if I would illustrate it, and I was thrilled to join the project. I learned later that our conversations about the illustrations by phone between the West and East Coasts, took all his energy for that day.

One of the last times I visited my Dad before he died, we were walking near a small rock face on the shore of Lake Champlain where my parents had built a house. To honor our time together, I yodeled and a small echo returned…and then my Dad tried to utter his booming call…but failed mid-breath. It struck me that he body was failing him and he would be gone soon. It broke my heart. We walked on in silence.

So I continue to yodel while on “two boards”, no matter the snow conditions, so that I may cherish the echoes of the past and present, for the love of skiing and my Dad.