by Deborah Kendrick
(Reprinted from “The Cincinnati Enquirer,” February 11, 2001.)
(Editor’s Note: This article was originally printed in “The Columbus Dispatch” and is reprinted with permission. To alert editors of newspapers near you to the weekly “Alive and Well” column on disability rights issues, contact Deborah Kendrick via e-mail at dkkendrick@earthlink.net.)
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Pairs of friends, new and old, mill about on cross-country skis, wiggling and sliding skis to keep warm in the 19-degree chill of sunny Green Bay.
Six national anthems play for the countries represented at the 26th annual Race and Rally for Ski for Light International. Pairs line up, with race bibs numbering one to 117, and, two by two, they are announced, sent off and cheered. My number is 106, so there is much fidgeting and blowing in mittens as I inch closer to the starting line.
Brand-new guide
As a blind skier, I am in the right-hand pair of preset tracks. My guide, Carly Seeger, is in the left. The custom is to match instructor/guide with blind skier at week’s beginning, to build a bond of trust that culminates on race day. My original guide, Kay Robertson of California, has been laid low by fever and nausea, so Carly and I just met this morning.
We are both anxious. She wonders if I am a competent skier and able to follow her directions. I am concerned, in a more visceral way, for my own well-being. She is 22, a first-year instructor/guide, having just completed student teaching in Minnesota. Will she remember to tell me when a hill curves left or right and to stop if a tree is perilously near my face?
By the time we reach the 1-kilometer marker on the 10-kilometer course, I am soaringly happy. The snow is excellent, the tracks perfect, and Carly Seeger turns out to be one of the most remarkable people who have guided me in my seven years of skiing. The information she gives me about terrain and technique is clear, concise and timely.
My waxless skis are somewhat sluggish, but I don’t care. The course is beautiful and effortless, and this new guide has the gift that so often breathes magic into the experience. Because she is doing her job so well, we both forget that she can see and I cannot.
Gift from Norway
Ski for Light was born in 1975 as a sort of gift from Norway to America. The event is held in a new location each year, and skiers come from every state and several other countries. They are judges, physicians, business owners, forest rangers, college students and homemakers. Some are world-champion athletes, and others have done nothing athletic before.
This year, the Tristate is represented by three other visually impaired participants — Jim Denham of Mount Airy, Chuck Lester of Wyoming and Michelle Lauer of Florence — and one guide/instructor. Dr. Daniel Beckman, an Anderson Township pathologist, happened to be skiing at a resort in Cable, Wis., in the mid-1980s. Seeing the enthusiasm of blind, visually impaired, and mobility-impaired skiers and their guides, he recalls saying to himself, “I’m going to do that someday.”
In 1997, he contacted the organization. He has returned every year since. In the spirit so typical of Ski for Light, he speaks often to civic groups and has recruited friends and his own sister, a diving instructor in Hawaii, to become guides with him.
The motto of Ski for Light is “If I can do this, I can do anything.”
Revel in the outdoors
Corny maybe, but it captures the essence of the experience for everyone. For one week, people with and without disabilities revel in the beauty of the outdoors and the exhilarating sound and feel of skis shushing on snow.
But the week is so much more. We suspend the hierarchy of one-up, one-down that exists in our lives at home and thrive, albeit temporarily, in an environment where no one keeps score — who has normal vision and who hasn’t, who can walk and who uses a chair for mobility, who is old or young or Japanese or North Carolinian. All of that is superseded by the bond of doing something wonderful together.
Perhaps the motto should be: “If we can do this here, we can do it anywhere.”
For more information, visit the Ski for Light Web site at www.sfl.org.
Now that we’re in the mood to learn cross-country skiing, check out the list below, containing information about all the upcoming Ski For Light regional events and contact information.
• Sierra Regional Ski for Light Saturday day trips, Saturday, January 12, 2002, Saturday, February 9, 2002, Saturday, February 23, 2002. Location of all three day trips: Tahoe Donner Cross Country, Truckee, Calif. Cost: $16 (less if you have your own skis). Contact Betsy Rowell, phone (916) 362-5557, e-mail montbets@pacbell.net.
• Michigan Ski For Light — January 18-20, 2002, North Higgins State Park, Roscommon, MI. Cost: $100 per person. Contact Jim Ellickson by e-mail ellickson@voyager.net, web site http://sites.netscape.net/ellickso.
• Ohio Winter Sports Retreat, Sponsored by ACB of Ohio, January 18-21, 2002, Punderson State Park, Newbury, OH. Contact Leah Noble, phone (606) 442-5218, e-mail leah.noble@fuse.net , web site http://www.acbohio.org/.
• Black Hills Regional Ski for Light — January 20-24, 2002, Deer Mountain, Deadwood, SD. Contact John Gould, phone (605) 341-3626, P.O. Box 3707, Rapid City, SD 57709.
• Wisconsin Regional Ski For Light — January 25-27, 2002, Wisconsin Lions Camp, Rosholt, Wis. Contact Beverly Helland, phone (608) 884-4955, e-mail bhelland@madison.k12.wi.us.
• Land of the Vikings — February 3-10, 2002, Sherman, Pa. Contact Bjorg M. Dunlop by phone at (518) 731-8741, or by e-mail, bjorgmd@aol.com.
• Colorado Ski for Light — February 22-24, 2002, Snow Mountain Ranch, Granby, CO. Contact Scott Bertrand, phone (303) 986-6714, e-mail bertrand@denveronline.net.
• Sierra Regional Ski For Light — March 9-11, 2002, Tahoe Donner Cross Country, Truckee, Calif. Cost is $155 with skis (double occupancy), $180 if you need skis (double occupancy). Contact Julie Lisenby, P.O. Box 276371, Sacramento, CA 95827-6371, phone (916) 362-5759, e-mail julis823@pacbell.net.
• Montana Ski for Light — March 21-25, 2002, West Yellowstone, MT, cost $236 per person (double occupancy). Participants also responsible for transportation to and from the site. Contact Ed Durbin by phone at (406) 538-7151, e-mail tedurbin@mcn.net.
• New England Regional Ski for Light —dates pending, P.O. Box 234, Foxboro, MA 02035-0234, voice mail, (508) 660-9270. Contact Claire Morrissette, e-mail clairejm@netzero.net, web site http://www.nersfl.org.
• Seattle (Puget Sound) Ski for Light, dates pending. Contact Maida Pojtinger, phone (253) 631-7904, e-mail rmpoj@aol.com.
• Ski for Light Canada — dates pending, web site http://mypage.direct.ca/a/aac/index.html. Contact Annar Jacobsen, phone (604) 826-4559, or Alice Cristofoli, phone (250) 368-6236, e-mail aac@direct.ca.