Word: mountain
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Sometimes while riding a ski lift to the top of a mountain in the northeast, a quirky furious wind suddenly blasts out of nowhere. A bracing gust howls across a valley, provoking violent rocking of your chair suspended high on the liftline. The wind picks up a lot of light snow and you have to close your eyes. In the next second, while your chair is still rocking, there is no wind at all. A stillness settles. Then, from out of the woods, jumps a white column of snow perhaps forty feet high which seems to be the manifestation...
When the white column crosses the slope its point swings like a pendulum, as though it is gathering momentum for a charge down the mountain. But then something seems to anger it and it will balks or pouts and leaps over the lift tower, quivering and shaking violently in paroxysms. As if two wills were fighting for it--one impelling it down the mountain trail, to swirl light-fingered down the moguls, and the other pulling back in horror from the touch of the slick ice or hard packed snow or rocks beneath the powdery surface fluff...
...Nickel Mountain, Gardner...
...were filled to capacity. Dr. Patterson, the principal, walked out on to the stage. He called Charlie to come stand beside him. So gawking, hillybilly-ish 6 ft. 5 in. Charlie moseyed down there. Dr. Patterson started talking about what an inspiration Charlie had been since his arrival at Mountain Brook--not only as an athlete but as a person. Poor, humble Charlie didn't know what was going on. Finally Dr. P.--"D.P." we used to call him behind his back--got to the point. The faculty had decided to retire Charlie's basketball jersey--they figured that...
...imagine what's going on at Mountain Brook High School this very minute--plans to unretire Charlie's jersey or some other fitting gesture to purge our souls of his influence...