Snowed in Again

     Yesterday I walked through two feet of snow a quarter mile down the road, where a kind neighbor helped me dig my car out and get it up the last icy stretch to the paved road, ready for whenever I need to go to town. As I trudged home again, I was remembering another time, eighteen years ago…

    I was booked as a Chautauqua lecturer for 3:00 Sunday at the Applegate library. By Saturday I was already snowbound by three feet of snow. When I talked with Joan Peterson, program coordinator, by phone Sunday morning, we agreed to try to do the lecture if at all possible. I suggested I could ski to Thompson Creek Road, if she could meet me there. She expressed apprehension, but I said I would feel like a hero. "A hero is one thing," she said. "A martyr is another."

    I said I would make a trial run to see if I could ski the steep hills and would call her back.

    With the soft, deep snow counteracting the steepness, I was able to ski down the first hill. At its bottom three small fir trees stretched across the road, their dangling limbs frozen into place like a lace curtain. I crawled through the stiff branches, then skied down the second hill and up the slope to the snow-packed paved road, where Norm Young was just driving by in his four-wheel-drive Toyota Tacoma with chains on all four tires. He said the snowplow had stopped two miles down the road, at the county line, and that the road on those last two miles was "challenging with a capital C." He doubted that Joan could get up it in her Subaru.

    I skied to the mailbox, picked up the latest New Yorker and my mail (Rhonda, the mail carrier, had made it there on Friday!), and retraced my steps. The uphill skiing was slick but possible. I hoped I wouldn't be doing it in the dark.

    Home again, changing my wet clothes, I was sorry to see the New Yorker had fallen from my pocket. I called Joan to tell her I could ski down but wasn't sure she could drive up. She said she thought she could make it with chains. She and Christopher were still trying to disinter her car from snow, but she would meet me at 1:30.

    I had just time to eat lunch and pack what I needed for my lecture: my metal music stand for a lectern, my laptop computer, sixteen books (yes, all necessary), and a change of clothes and shoes so I wouldn't have to lecture in ski clothes. I slipped my arms into the pack. It was startlingly heavy. I clipped my boots into my skis and took off, but, unbalanced by the pack, I fell at once. Pinned on my back by the pack's weight, uselessly clawing at the air with my arms and legs like an overturned stink bug, I somehow managed to release my boots from the bindings. Using the skis as platforms, I twisted to a sideways kneeling position. The soft snow gave no purchase, but, swaying under the weight of the pack, I managed to stand. I made a successful second start, but when I headed down the first hill, I fell again. Finally I was skiing again, carefully and slowly. As I crouched to ski through the tunnel of snowy limbs, I thought, "This is the hardest $200 I've ever earned."

    Skiing over the rise of the second hill, I saw, to my surprise, Tuffy Decker, trudging, waist-deep in snow, up the hill with a cable over his shoulder, on the other end of which was a yellow Jeep, cock-eyed to the road against the snow bank, with two teen-agers inside and another man standing in the road. I recognized this as a rescue mission for my neighbor, Sylvia, who was, as always, anxious about being able to get in and out. Tuffy greeted me cheerfully and handed me my sodden New Yorker as we passed.

    By the time I reached the road, I was fifteen minutes late. Joan wasn't there, but Louise Nicholson was just skiing past. I dropped my pack under a tree and joined her to ski down the road a bit, thinking Joan might be stuck in the snow somewhere. We skied a mile without seeing anyone, then turned back, meeting, on the way, the Jeep and crew of Tuffy's now unsuccessful rescue mission.

    Retrieving my pack from under the tree, I shoved the books into two heavy plastic bags, which Louise stuffed into two mailboxes on the road. I left the music stand under the tree, put the computer in the pack, bid good-bye to Louise, and started up the hills towards home, slipping badly, side-hopping up the steepest parts, thinking, "Someone forgot when we made these plans that I'm sixty years old."

    On the way up I met Mike Hendrikson, coming down, plowing his long legs through the snow. Joan had called. She had been turned back by the depth of the snow on the unplowed road and was at the Alsenses' (warm by the fire, drinking coffee, nibbling cookies, chatting with Bob and Mary). She had wanted him to ask me, if he saw me, if I could ski down the road to meet her there.

    I considered the possibility for about five seconds.

    Finally home again, I changed my wet clothes and called Joan. She was glad I hadn't tried to meet her. She would call Gayle to put a note on the door of the library that the lecture had been canceled. We had done our heroic best.

    I was bone tired. I had skied that route four times, twice down, twice up. I felt more like a martyr than a hero. Weary beyond belief, I stoked the fire, made a cup of tea, and curled into bed to read a slightly damp New Yorker.