Ski Shop Fantasy
Living the dream on $4.75 an hour
By JACK MORRIS

The question on the application read, "Why do you want to work here?"

That was easy. For the wild hot-tub parties. For the babes. For the fame of launching off cliffs above the ski paparazzi. For the glamour and prestige of working in the SKI INDUSTRY. I was 17, socially awkward, and still shot pimples into the mirror. I knew exactly why I wanted to work here.

Other kids my age bagged groceries or pumped gas or folded jeans. I wanted my life to revolve around skiing and this was where it was going to begin: in the ski shop. So that's what I wrote. I knew it might come across as sucking up, but I hoped it would stand out from the pile of boring "just lookin' for a job" essays sitting on the manager's desk.

This suburban shop just outside Boston and hours from any real skiing became the epicenter of my world. Walking through its doors was like stepping into another dimension.

The warm scent of melting p-tex and hot wax wafted up from the basement, mixing with the unmistakable smell of down jackets and wool sweaters fresh from their cardboard boxes. Clothing bulged from round metal racks and wall hangers. Goggles and sunglasses beamed from behind glass cases next to which, on those slow weekday nights, Blizzard of Ahhhs and License to Thrill played constantly on the television.

In the hard goods section boot trees towered high above customers' heads and teetered on the brink of collapse. Poles stuck out like stalks of corn in one corner, while over in the other corner the roof-rack displays frustrated customers to no end. And then there was The Wall: a 100 foot-long shining masterpiece containing nearly every modern ski known to man. It commanded awe and attention and reverence.

"You're hired."

I'm hired? Sweet Jesus, I'm in! I'm going to work in a ski shop.

A shop that would become my second home. For six years.

I did my best to sell boards at The Wall. Some of us would point, using fancy terminology that we didn't always understand. Some would drop a ski to the floor, point at it, and marvel at the design. There was one guy who could bend and flex and twist each stick of wood and fiberglass like taffy. We even had an intercom code so that when it was happening, the rest of us could rush to watch him in action. 10-20 to skis, please. 10-20 to skis.

This is where I learned about ski bros and hidden lines and secret handshakes. I learned about the hazing ritual local students perform on Tuckerman Ravine rookies by making them hike back down the mountain for three miles in the middle of the night for a case of beer.

This was where I discovered how many stickers it takes to completely cover a Honda Civic (at least 400). This is where I learned about pro forms, iridium lenses, tri-axial braiding, base welds, Hot Chilis, "The Church" at Sugarbush, inventory, bomb runs, Rolling Rock Fridays, and free lift tickets all over New England. This was my skiing education. No, more than that. This was my life in the making.

I've since been in more shops than I can count. I discovered along the way there's a brotherhood of shop employees bound by a love of new gear and a tolerance for wafer-thin paychecks. Their shops, in small ways, became my shops.

There's that shop at Squaw Valley where I bumped into an old ski coach who hated me because I walked in on him and his girlfriend one morning before a race. His only words to me were, "Came out here to race mountain bikes four years ago. Never left."

There's that consignment shop in Truckee where I bought a pair of 224cm blue Yamahas with MRR bindings, then hit speeds I have yet to break under the Siberia quad.

There's that place in Vermont on Rt. 4 where a week-long road trip of pain began for a friend of mine thanks to a pair of rental skis and some of the hardest runs on and off the maps at Stowe, Mad River Glen, Jay Peak, and Mont Sainte Anne.

There's that chain store in Reno where I listened to Plake cackle about the best lines at Mammoth and berate the management of Squaw Valley to no end.

There was that ski show in Santa Rosa where a soft-spoken Schmidt talked about a recent day of windsurfing, and then again in Los Angeles where he described, in detail, the filming of "Siberia."

There was that small shop in Provo where, on my way from Boston to Tahoe, I stopped to pick up some camping supplies and the cashier, who seemed a little depressed, nearly hopped in the car with me.

There's that shop in Sun Valley where mountain bikers I'd never met pointed me in the direction of the best singletrack I've ever ridden.

There's that tiny joint in Whistler where I first heard the words "sushi" and "skiing" in the same sentence, and where I purchased a Blackcomb hat that met its doom one fateful day on the highway years later as I poked my head out the window for a quick pick-me-up.

I'll never forget the shop at Sugarbush where some kid from Jersey sat stone-faced in the passenger seat of his Camaro with the door open in 10-degree weather, blasting the Deftones so loud that people in the store couldn't hear each other.

I moved on years ago. The condos, the wild hot-tub parties, the cameramen never materialized. That's alright. I got what I wanted. I got the brotherhood.


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Jack Morris now works for a slightly better hourly wage in Boston.