Somewhere inside my parent’s house is a faded photograph of me on the slopes. I’m 6 or 8 or thereabouts, blue snowsuit and no poles. I am positively adorable as a pudgy-faced, wide-eyed ski baby.
The photo was taken on the morning of my first day of ski school, after the tears and fears had been, if not wiped completely away, cleared enough so that no evidence of either would be captured for posterity sake. The kicking and screaming going in stood in stark contrast to the wide grins while gliding down green circle beginner trails by lunchtime. Soon I was handling the blue squares with ease and in another year or two, a black diamond was nothin’.
As a child I loved hockey, snowstorms and everything else winter offered, and skiing came natural to me in a way that not many other participatory sports ever did. For example, you’d have to have shielded your eyes when I was on a basketball court and not only because of my pasty white skin which never saw the sun, but skiing, that was kind of easy. By the time I was in my teens I was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt on the slopes, thinking I was all kinds of rad because I never fell.
It’s been years since I’ve strapped on a pair of K2s and frankly, I’d be a-ok if I never saw snow again outside of a pre-recorded YouTube video. Gimme 72 and sunny 365 days a year and I’d be in heaven. Unfortunately, I’m actually in southeastern Pennsylvania and recently was buried alive by 3 feet of snow. Heaven this was not.
Despite my bad back and lack of interest in cold, snow, and cold snow, I was the member of the family bundled up for hours digging a path to freedom…er, to the gallon of milk I forgot to buy before blizzard Jonas unleashed the snow kraken upon us. This was no way to treat a newly-minted 40-year-old man, yet there I was. Cold, sore, alone. Thankfully, a lozenge developed 150 years ago to help truly tough dudes handle commercial fishing in the frigid North Atlantic was in my pocket and in my mouth to help me fight off cold and flu season.
I didn’t know of Fisherman’s Friend when I was a snot-nosed kid swishing down the slopes thirty some years ago which is unfortunate because I could’ve used the sweet cherry assistance to be less of a literal snotty brat (the figurative usage of ‘snotty’, however, was beyond the help of even these powerful menthol Fisherman’s Friend lozenges).
As I was outside in my red flannel Red Wings pajamas and the heaviest sweatshirt coat thing I own, fighting to move through, let alone shovel, 3 feet of snow on the walkway and the 4+ feet of powder plowed up along the line where the driveway meets the street, I stopped every 30 minutes or thereabouts, pulled the glove off my right hand with my teeth to wipe the sweaty snow mixture off my brow in a manner that was likely more cinematic than necessary. I needed those short rests to recharge and also to pop a few of these cherry Fisherman’s Friends (even taking them out of their packaging despite the photographic evidence to the contrary!)
Like magic, I stayed cold and flu free. Even more magically, I stayed upright after I made a path to freedom from our front door to car, and car to plowed street. I may never have been on a rusty fishing boat in the icy Atlantic Ocean and I may be guilty of daydreaming longingly of San Diego weather and life onboard the Carnival Sunshine in the southern Caribbean, but I now know true cold and I now know which lozenges can help me fight through cold season…and I’m still an adorable pudgy-faced, wide-eyed baby.
I have partnered with Life of Dad and Fisherman’s Friend for this promotion.
One Comment