Instincts, Maternal & Otherwise

What Happens in the Bookstore When No one is Looking…

Suzanne Bremer — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 21:32:57 +0000

Hey! Those are real books! And was that Fred and Ginger dancing? There’s nothing quite like a real book – or a real bookstore.

Letter from Idaho – August ’98

Suzanne Bremer — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:58:46 +0000

There is a book by Kenneth Lynn, Hemingway (Simon & Schuster, 1987) that you should take a look at. Besides being a well written literary biography, it has in it a series of photographs of E.H. in his last days. These pictures will blow you away. In the mid ’50s things began to fall apart. From ’59 on, the drinking and depression began to take over. It’s all there in the pictures.

In Havana he sits in a chintz covered club chair reading. Tense, tan, wearing loafers, shorts and a white, short sleeve shirt. To his left is the drink cart. Ice bucket, glasses, brown and green bottles wink at him in the sunlight.

Then there are the pictures from Ketchum, when the black doge was really closing in. The house, a raw split level stuck on a muddy hillside; the Big Wood River below, clogged with water and downed trees.

E.H. at dinner. The table set with place mats, one folk for dinner, another for salad, water glasses, a bottle of Burgundy. The Noble Laureate feeds the cat a morsel from his plate. His spectacles and cigarettes, Kents in a soft pack, to one side.

The trip back to Spain was a disaster. Hot summer afternoons spent sleeping off the wine drunk at lunch. Nights in the restaurants and bars, drinking the local brandies.

Mary could of hidden the key to the guns, but she believed that you should lock a man away from what is his. She knew that, in the end, she couldn’t protect him from himself.

On July 2, 1961 he stood in the front hall, put a shotgun to his head and pulled the trigger.

He is buried in the cemetery just north of town. People leave nips of bourbon, dollar bills and river-washed stones on his grave. A couple of miles east, on Trail Creek Road, they build a memorial. A bronze bust and a bit of the creek diverted. The inscription is from a eulogy that he wrote for a friend killed in a hunting accident years before -
Best of all, he loved the fall,
the leaves yellow on the cottonwoods
leaves floating on the trout streams
and above the hills
the high blue windless skies
…now he will be part of them forever

Back in town is Chritiania’s, where he eat his last meal. The Pioneer Saloon, Ketchum Casino, the Silver Dollar, the Ketchum Korral and Motor Inn – his haunts, are all still there. In the Pioneer is picture hangs to the right of the bar. At the Ketchum Korral you can sleep in the cabin where he stayed back in the early days, when he came to hunt and fish. His son Jack lives in the area, and is active in conservation projects at the state and local level. His granddaughter and other glitterati can be spotted in the grocery store and at Bruce Willis’ diner; they park their Lear jets on the tarmac at the airport down in Hailey. The airport is across the street from the Hailey “Home of the Sawtooth Rangers” High School’s rodeo ring. On the 4th of July there is a rodeo there. Sitting in the stands, watching the barrel racers on their quick quarter horses, the ropers and the clowns, drinking bee, cracking open fresh roasted salted peanuts, watching the long, gaudy sunset light up the surrounding mountains, the air thin and clear, it is hard not to swear that you can’t still hear the echo of that shotgun blast.

And then there are the trips that don’t happen…

Suzanne Bremer — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 19:24:27 +0000

At dinner last night we talked about skiing today. But being a night owl caught up to teenage son, who slept until 10:30. Wa Wa reports that 10th Mountain Trail has opened – so now there are two trails open off the Polar Express Quad. We’ll tee this trip up again for tomorrow. Maybe cider donuts at Bullock Lodge will seal the deal.

Out of the House and into the Mountains

Suzanne Bremer — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 16:16:47 +0000

Every trip is different. While there may be reoccurring themes and fairly consistent parts to all ski trips, each particular trip happens only once. Yesterday marked the two-third point of winter break, and to stave off cabin fever, the kids and I made a day of it at Wachusett Mountain.

The night before, I sold the kids on the idea that skiing in the morning is best (no lie there), and sealed the deal with a promise of donuts on the way out of town. First thing in the morning, we loaded the car, packed Christmas cookies for snacks, and drove west on Route 2. Arlington, Belmont, Concord, Acton, Boxboro, Littleton – the well-to-do suburbs gave way to farm lands and woods, brown as doe skin.

The great New England snow drought continues. But with no snow on the ground in Boston, the trails were empty except for ski schoolers and true believers. The snow was wet and granular and the occasional rock showed through the thin cover. With temps in the mid 40s it was like spring skiing. We’d taken two runs, one slow, the other significantly faster, when hunger emerged as an issue. In the spirit of overindulgence and the holiday season, we had lunch in the fancy, sit down and be waited on Black Diamond Lounge, where Candice, our server (who shares a name with Phineas and Ferb’s older sister, don’t you know?) kept us well supplied with napkins, beverages and chocolate Teddy Grahams. We also met Hannah, one of the presenters on the YouTube snow reports for the mountain, and saw the massive cow bell hanging over the bar, a gift from Dopplmeyer to commemorate the new high speed detachable quad chairlift they installed earlier this month over on the beginners slope. We took another turn down, then the wind picked up and turned the ride up the mountain into a test of endurance. So we packed it in and headed home while everyone was still having fun.

The Great E-Book Experiment

Suzanne Bremer — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 17:20:00 +0000

I was sitting in a staff meeting at the Newton Free Library when I saw a collection of librarians embrace the e-book. This was in the late ’90s and handheld readers were an emerging technology. The library director proposed that three be purchased for patron use. Her idea was met with stony silence – everyone bristle. Here was yet another assault on books. And then, the light bulb went off. Everyone one realized that now when they went on vacation instead of packing a stack of books that looked like this -

they could carry the same content and more in something that looked like this

And everyone saw immediately how really, really cool e-books would be. For some of us, the e-book has been a long time coming.

Crossing Over.
OK. So I got it – e-books are highly portable. My problem was finding a point to make the shift – how to find the right alignment of easy of use, portability, sustainability, access to content, product costs and functionality. The intersection for me came with the Kindle app on the iPhone. Amazon provides the content; Apple provides the platform. Then it became a question of what would be the first book read, cover-to-cover as it were, as an e-book. And, because I love getting stuff for free, I was drawn to books in the public domain and took several stabs at A Tale of Two Cities while laying in the hammock over the summer. I didn’t make it past chapter 5 – The Shoemaker. About a week ago, I tried again. This time I ponied up and spent $5.21 for access. And it worked – I read the whole thing. A perfect potboiler – a story that I could take up and put down without losing interest. And because it was on my phone, I had it with me almost all of the time and could read in the odd, spare minutes of my day.

I did notice that when I opened the Kindle edition I was on the first page of chapter 1. I wonder if something is lost by skipping over the front matter; as if author’s dedication and the name of the copyright holder and year of publication are merely incidental. Another curious feature was finding passages highlighted by people I don’t know. Turned that feature right off – it’s hard to focus on the story with all those other voices in the room.

Opening Day Ski Season 2011

Suzanne Bremer — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 22:09:32 +0000

I went to bed last night thinking that Tuesday would be the day – Wachusett had posted that they’d open late morning/noon today and, with a 1:30 hard stop, it didn’t seem worth the drive. This morning our son, all limp & sluggish, was a testament to how miserable live can be when you’re in middle school. I caved and granted him a mental health day. I left him buried under the covers and went to log on to get my day going. Couldn’t help but look at the status on the mountain and found that it was opening at 9:00 a.m. Hustled the kid out of bed, threw everything the car (no time or need for ski rack) and we were on the lift at 10:35.

The crowds were thin, but the snow cover wasn’t. The kid took the lead, picking which of the two open trails we’d take. He’s on new skis this season – 130s – and has the confidence of young man who has been skiing since he could walk. He was kind enough to wait for me to join him at the bottom before getting in the lift line. All in all – a great day of skiing.

Snow in the Worcester Hills

Suzanne Bremer — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 16:47:15 +0000

Last night’s rain was followed by cold and wind. With a dusting of snow in the western hills, it looks like Wachusett will be open soon. Maybe not time to put the ski rack on the car soon; more like it’s time to go buy some new ski sock type of soon.

Snow Falling on Blog

Suzanne Bremer — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 15:53:44 +0000

The drought continues here in the Northeast. Thanks to the cleaver folks at WordPress (Code is Poetry, CSS is Art), however, it is snowing in my blog. Are you a WordPress user and want to have it snow in your blog? On the dashboard, go to Settings, then General and check the “Show Falling Snow on my Blog” box. Offer good until January 4th. I’m sure we’ll have at least a foot of snow on the ground by then.

We are the 1%

Suzanne Bremer — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:44:46 +0000

We are New England skiers. While the 99% are walking around, enjoying the extraordinarily mild weather, we’re wishing for a cold front, a Nor ‘Easter, subfreezing temperatures. Maybe next week. Meanwhile, we wait.

How I learned of La Nina (see below)
My good friends Steve and Wayne at Ski Haus sponsored the New England premier to benefit Adaptive Sports Partners of the North Country. Among other things, they run the adaptive ski program up at Cannon. A worthy cause if there every was one.

Best in Show

The Boston Ski and Snowboard Expo answered this maiden’s pray for something to do with the kids when school was closed in observation of Veteran’s Day (h/t Tenth Mountain Division). As with many outings, the food is the thing, and after running the opening gauntlet of vendors, we made straight to the snack bar. Sharing a table with a couple of very reps from Gus Stuff, we learned about their new business. They’ve created a line of eye catching neck warmers, mittens and hats. Based in northern New England, their products eye are made by home sewers in Maine. Always looking for ways to support local economies in ski country, we did some Christmas shopping at their booth.

Besides getting to climb all over a factory fresh pimped out Subaru Outback, other expo highlights included scoring two-fers for Mount Snow lift tickets, bandannas from Lufthansa, and the Long Trail Ale vendor next to the slack line demo. Bibo ergo sum.

Tick, tick, tick

Suzanne Bremer — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 21:39:29 +0000

The snow clock is ticking. An e-mail from Sunday River that they’re expecting a foot up. Jiminy Peak wrote to say that they won’t be open, but you can ride the mountain coaster and have Thanksgiving Dinner. The guys out at Ski Haus, where I bought a new pair of ski boots this morning, are expecting the stores will be jumping this weekend. Here in Boston, the air feels cold, damp and heavy – you can almost smell the snow.