Hot Chocolate

Recently, I’ve experienced an intriguing confluence of coincidences.

They all involve my father.

It started a week ago.

***

First, my friend Brian—we grew up next door to each other—emailed to say he’d found some slides while going through his recently-deceased father’s belongings. Some were of my father and his beloved P-12 (a restored 1926 Boeing bi-plane also known as a Boeing 100). They were taken at a flying club gathering in 1983. Brian wanted to verify my mailing address so he could send them to me.

The slides arrived Thursday, January 11th, which is the birthday of my brother Tim, who passed away in 2020, at age 65, after suffering a devastating head injury in a cycling accident.

Holding the color Kodak slides up to a sunlit window, I could barely see my father, standing next to the P-12, smiling and happy. It was a bittersweet moment, seeing those tiny images of my father, reflecting on happier times, yet realizing I’ll only be able to share prints with the two brothers still living.

Later that day, out of the blue, Dennis—one of my father’s colleagues at Boeing—emailed to say he had a couple of 8.5 x 11 black-and-white photos of my father he was mailing to me. “One of them is of your Dad with Tex Johnston in the cockpit of the – 80,” he wrote. The – 80, or Dash 80, was the prototype for the 707, the first commercial jet airplane. It was the Dash 80 that Tex and co-pilot Jim Gannett famously barrel-rolled, twice, over the 1955 Seattle Seafair hydroplane races, to the delight of thousands of awe-struck fans. I wrote about the incident in my book Growing Up Boeing: The Early Jet Age Through the Eyes of a Test Pilot’s Daughter, and included an image of a Polaroid photo taken from inside the Dash 80 while it was upside down over Seattle and Lake Washington. Jim gave me the Polaroid when I interviewed him, one of several taken by the flight engineer that day. It (or one of the others) is included in this short video about the event.

It rained most of Thursday, keeping me and dogs inside, so the slides and email were welcome distractions. Overnight, temperatures dipped below freezing. By Friday morning, local roads were ice rinks and the foot-deep snow on the ground became crusty on top but soft underneath, no fun for me or the dogs to play in. Other than quick forays into the yard, we stayed inside another day.

I used the free time Friday to catch up on emails with friends. To one, who also grew up in Washington state, I described the wet and heavy snow conditions I was experiencing. “It reminds me of when, as kids, my brothers and I downhill skied in similar snow, often in the rain.” In the days before quick-release bindings, we had to be careful we didn’t break a leg trying to turn in piles of heavy snow. Later, skiers referred to such snow as Cascade Concrete, or Cascade Crud. I’m learning that Vermont’s snow is frequently its own variety of Cascade Concrete.

Friday afternoon, via email I reached out to Sean, a local author and college instructor. I met Sean in the spring of 2023 when I invited him to speak at a series of author readings I created at my local library. He was so popular I invited him to speak again, about another of his books, last fall. I asked Sean if he’d be willing to read my manuscript, and potentially write a blurb. He responded immediately, saying he would be happy to. As an aside, he mentioned his family was going skiing this weekend in New Hampshire. In the rain, he feared.

Sean has a young daughter. That fact, plus the visual of skiing in the rain, sparked a flood of memories.

This is where hot chocolate comes into the story.

***

I’m the youngest of four children. By the time my father was teaching me how to snow ski, at age five, he’d already taught my three brothers. Dad grew up on a farm in Kansas. I know he ice skated as a kid, but I don’t know where or when he first learned to ski. Probably not until Boeing transferred him to Seattle in 1955. My guess is, he taught himself.

On most winter weekends, December through April, my father took my brothers and me skiing at Snoqualmie Pass, a hour’s drive up into the Cascade Mountains. My mother prepared brown-bag lunches the night before, and would have thermoses of hot drinks or soup ready for us in the morning before sending us on our way. (Mom didn’t ski. I’m sure she enjoyed having an entire day to herself.) While we kids ate cereal, oatmeal, and toast for breakfast, Dad made sure all our ski boots, poles, and skis were loaded on or in our Buick station wagon (aka, the tank). Before backing out of the garage, with all of us seated in the car, he’d call out a list, like a pilot going through the checklist with his co-pilot.

“Gloves?” he’d ask. “Yep,” we’d all reply before he continued.

“Goggles? Ski socks? Parkas? Lunches?”

If one of us forgot an item—usually goggles, for some reason—we’d run back into the house to get it.

A bit like herding cats for him, I imagine, but it worked; we rarely forgot anything critical. Even in later years, when my brothers and I were enrolled in ski schools with buses that took us to the ski area, Dad ran through the same checklist as he drove us to the buses. If we forgot a lunch, he’d give us a few dollars to buy food at the ski area lodge.

Once at the ski area, Dad purchased our lift tickets and we all tramped into the lodge to get geared up. My brothers would head out to ski on their own while Dad taught me.

Dad taught me to use the bunny hill rope tow. He would move into position in the loading area, the moving rope on his right. He’d take my poles and add them to his own in his left hand. I would step in front of him, and he would get close behind me, his skis parallel and outside my own. I’d lean back against Dad and wrap my arms back around his thighs.

“Ready, Becky?” he’d ask as I settled into position.

“Ready!” I’d respond, and with a sudden lurch forward as his right hand grasped the rope tightly, we slowly glided up the gentle slope. At the top, he’d ski us away from the tow, then tell me to let go of his legs and hand me my poles. He would start down the gentle slope in a snow plow and have me follow him, imitating his every turn, back and forth across the hill. If I fell, he hiked back up and, if I needed it, helped me get back on my feet.

Eventually Dad showed me how to grasp the tow rope with mitted hands, my poles still strapped to my wrists. There was some skill to it, because if you didn’t grasp tightly right away, the rope would quickly burn through a pair of gloves or mitts. Grab too tight too quick, though, and you got jerked forward too hard.

At first, Dad stayed right behind me, so if I slipped or started to fall to one side, or did fall, he was right there to help steady me or get up to re-grasp the rope. I focused hard, eyes on my skis, not wanting to fall, getting in the way of other skiers coming up behind us. One time I got to the top, happy I hadn’t slipped or fallen, only to realize Dad wasn’t right behind me. Just as he’d done when teaching me to ride a bike, he “let go” without telling me, more confident than I that I could do it on my own.

My fingers and toes often got cold, especially if it was snowing hard (or raining) and my coat and mitts got soaked. I’d try to ignore it because I loved skiing so much, but eventually I couldn’t stand the pain any longer. I’d whine: “My hands are cold, Dad. I can’t hold my poles!” That’s when Dad would suggest we go to the lodge and warm up.

The lodge was a large open room, a bit like a school cafeteria. Long rows of plastic-topped picnic tables with attached benches filled most of the area. Skiers stored duffels with extra gear and home-made lunches along a wall. A kitchen and sales counter at the far end offered food and drinks for sale.

Dad and I would ski to the lodge, stick our skis and poles in the snow outside the door (this was in 1961/62, before theft became a problem), and walk awkwardly in our stiff ski boots up the stairs and into the lodge.

Dad would find a table and put his hat and gloves on it. “Sit down, and I’ll get you a hot chocolate,” he’d say. I’d sit on the bench, back to the table, and peel off my snow- or rain-soaked parka, hat, goggles and mitts, waiting for him, shivering.

Dad would return with two steaming white Styrofoam cups, a hot chocolate for me, a coffee for him.

“Here, put the cup between your hands to warm them up,” Dad always said, handing me the hot chocolate. Sometimes I was shivering so bad, I barely trusted myself to not drop it. I was glad the cup came with a lid.

Dad would sit on the bench of the next table over, facing me, our legs in the aisle between rows of tables rather than underneath them. He’d pick up one of my legs by the ankle and place my booted heel on his knee. After unlacing my leather ski boot and pulling it off my foot, he’d rest my heel on his knee, then start gently rubbing my frozen toes, still in my wool sock, between his warm hands.

To this day I can see his hands in my mind’s eye: always-tanned, lean strong fingers, a smattering of black hairs between his knuckles and along the back side near his wrist, gently rubbing my toes as if rubbing his own palms together for warmth. As my toes went from numb to thawing, they would hurt with a pins-and-needles sensation. Dad would joke or ask me questions to distract me.

Once one foot was warm, Dad repeated the routine with the other, rubbing and talking until it, too, was thawed.

By then, the cup of hot chocolate, having warmed my hands, was cool enough for me to drink, warming my core. And Dad would finally drink his coffee.

Equilibrium restored, Dad would help me back into my boots, lacing them for me. He’d dig a dry pair of mitts from our shared duffel bag as I put my coat and hat back on. Last, he’d pull his handkerchief from his pants pocket and dry the inside of my goggles.

“Ready for more skiing?” he’d ask, smiling with encouragement. I always nodded enthusiastically and returned his smile.

There were days when this warming routine was repeated a second, even a third time. Rainy days, usually. Dad never minded. He made it fun. I never felt a burden to him.

With Dad’s help, I soon mastered the poma, the T-bar, and finally, the chair lift. He showed me the stem Christi turn. When I was in fourth grade, I started Saturday ski school, joining my brothers. There, I learned parallel turns, how to turn in Cascade Concrete and on icy moguls, even how to race through slalom gates. Dad still took us all skiing most winter Sundays and holidays.

By sixth grade I had the skill and confidence to ride the chair lift by myself and (almost) keep up with my brothers on the most challenging runs. I became a better skier than my father, with far better endurance. Yet I still preferred to ski with him, happy to wait for him at the bottom so we could ride the chair to the top together.

And Dad still bought me a hot chocolate when I got cold, and rubbed my feet until they thawed.

***

After soaking in the warmth of those memories of skiing and hot chocolate, I received an email yesterday evening.

It was from another Vermont author. We met last September when we both participated in a book conference event in Burlington. It was a sort of author reading slam. Part of a group of six affiliated with the Burlington Writers Workshop, we each had ten minutes to read from one of our works. Roger read some of his poetry. I read from Growing Up Boeing. It was a fun and supportive experience, with several groups of six participating over a few hours. Before leaving, Roger purchased a copy of my book, which I inscribed for him. Soon after, Roger sent me a lovely email, saying how much he enjoyed reading it.

Roger’s more recent email let me know he’d given his copy of my book to his brother-in-law, Lynn, to read while visiting from Canada, and had a message from Lynn to share with me: “Roger loaned me your lovely book and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Your father’s remarkable piloting experiences and your family stories worked in so well together. Thank you for the good read.”

I love getting such emails! They never fail to bring a smile and warm my heart, knowing that still, ten years after publication, my father’s stories make others happy. I think it’s the best reward an author can receive.

As I’m on the verge of publishing my new book, these reminders of my father, coming from so many unexpected sources, feel like a cosmic “Atta girl!” from him, like one of his warm, encouraging bear hugs.

***

Today (Saturday), another storm packing strong winds and heavy snow, followed by rain, knocked my power out for three hours. The house got cold and I retreated to my bed, seeking warmth under the covers. When the power came back on, I got up and turned on my computer, eager to weave these coincidences and associated memories into a story and post it to my blog before the next power outage.

But first, I made myself a mug of hot chocolate.

[Featured image: My school district-sponsored ski school class when I was in eighth grade, at Snoqualmie Summit Ski Area, 1970 or 1971. I’m third from left. By then, equipment had evolved to hard-shell buckle boots and step-in, quick-release bindings with safety straps. But we were still a long way from weather-repelling, warm Gore-tex jackets. Instead, we sprayed our nylon shell jackets with Scotch Guard to provide some waterproofing.]