T'WAS THE DAY AFTER FRIDAY THE 13TH

One warm April day I cut that ski season’s very last tracks on cast off rental boards pulled from a dumpster behind the pro shop. All natural snow was long gone but the steepest blue diamond run held remnants of artificial lingering only an hour's hump away. Later, grinding straight downhill on fresh sedge and cracked rock in a slo-mo racing tuck, the hardest part was deciding whether to cry or laugh. Then I'd reach a snowy patch moving so fast that even big hopping step turns weren’t enough to control speed. It took a while, but eventually I was all set for a royal face plant with no one to watch – or scrape my carcass from the stone I was bound to kiss. (By that time the entire ski patrol was busy elsewhere, pounding nails, pulling teeth, driving racecars or tending bar at weddings for thousands in tips.)Halfway down, one small patch of shaded crust remained in a corner where the pitch turned and steepened. I dove for that like a halfback into the end zone. KaWHUMP, bounce, flop and roll throwing a ski, then belly slide to a stop with almost no blood. KOOL! I brushed the melting corn snow from my face and stumped into the woods on one ski to pick up the other, burning my palm on its sizzling steel edge. So much for being a kid again. Then I saw tantalizing glints in a sunbeam beneath brush at the trail's edge. Imagine, in thick woods on a mountainside, finding money! Not much of course, but legal tender nonetheless. Some tourist who barely knew which way was down (we called them turkeys in my day) had lost control and tumbled 'off piste' right here where I did. Jeez what a coincidence! After gathering nearly a dollar in change, searching triumphantly for more I glimpsed something equally unexpected. It was a segment of some emblem, tiny letters bright and distinctive. The visible part said: CROM& ITCH "Ah just a novelty belt buckle," I told myself, not bothering to lean in for a closer look. Then back out where the action was, well on down toward the next crash it dawned that the bauble could have been sterling... URCH. With no more snow from there down anyway, I hung the skis in a tree for whoever might want 'em next and humped back up again to the first crash site (much easier without skis to carry). The bauble? Couldn't find it of course. That I did expect. By then though, the feeling had begun to gestate, a canny magnetic certainty, the kind of hyperception water witchers master. Ballplayers call it The Zone. Whatever it was, something there needed finding! Problem was, it seemed to have disappeared. Among our least favorite sacraments is the impatient anguish of letting a plan run its course even after you believe it's bound to fail, because no better option exists. Cursing myself (careful not to mention anyone's mother) and dreading an even longer jog down the flat runout in aching ski boots, I sat to rest my feet before the mountain's final assault on them. Then when I stood to water the weeds before heading out, one of those pesky angels that haunt my shoulders whispered, 'Take another look.' After all, the sun angle had changed, perhaps revealing more jetsam from other turkeys (or heroes like myself). And nothing good ever happens when we ignore our angels. What I'd thought was a 'bauble' turned out to be not silver, but something of greater value to me: a multipurpose Swiss Army knife, twice to big to wear in a comfy pants pocket and so new it had never yet been sharpened. Not the gaudy red we're all familiar with but jet black and emblazoned with a stainless ABERCROMBIE & FITCH emblem. KLASSY! The money fought its way through a hole in my pocket, back onto the ground somewhere, but I cradled that knife the whole way down in the happy fist of an overaged kid. Okay so what does all this have to with learinging to soar? If it's not obvious that's my fault and I apologize. If if is obvious, sorry for insulting your intelligence. But for the poor few like me who're thin at both ends, it may bear spelling out. Had I not been fool enough to dally there on the hill grubbing for coins – and then unable to dismiss persistant curiosity – I'd never have found the slick new item (priced at $65 in 1984!) that would be my handy desktop tool kit for years to come. Nifty little scissors, the removable tweezer and vinyl toothpick that I never did lose because they never left my desk. See the point? Think of altitude as money. Spare change is precious when you have almost none, a found penny feeling like treasure even if it'll only buy half a stick of gum. One can imagine stranger-than-fiction scenarios where that half a stick could be the half you need to make the difference, do the trick, save the day. And it brings a double whammy. Discovery itself is a thrill that also entices further curiosity, and that leads to further discovery. Where you find some of something you might find more, plus if you're always inquisitive, inevitably you'll stumble across goodies more prescious than those you sought.