One of these days I am going to have to learn to yodel. I think I could do it. I am not a trained singer but I can carry a tune and even slip between head and chest voice and whatever. Except when I’m drunk. And maybe even sometimes then. I am told that when I was three, I was standing in a church pew singing Christmas carols at the top of my lungs and some woman who regarded herself as a good singer turned around to see who was out-singing her and she had to look *down* because I wasn’t very tall when I was three don’tcha know.

I didn’t used to think that yodeling was cool. That was back in the days when we used to trudge up to Minneapolis Woods in the dark Sault Ste. Siberian winter evenings to ski! Schlepping our heavy old downhill skis, boots, and poles. It wasn’t a big hill, just a part of the escarpment (which we had to trudge up to get there) that runs through Sault Ste. Siberia and beyond. Minneapolis Woods had a big skating rink in those days and a fast rope tow that would probably be outlawed these days. And a ski jump! A rickety looking wooden ski jump. That was in the days before liability insurance outlawed anything that was any fun and I don’t think that ski jump is there any more (I may be wrong). And I bet the rope tow has been replaced with something safer too.

Anyway, Minneapolis Woods certainly wasn’t the fanciest ski area but there was a warming shack and a loudspeaker that played some of our favorite 60s music, Wipe Out being a favorite, because that’s what a lot of us often did, joyfully in most cases. Hahaha! I fell! No broken leg! Yodeling was also in the rotation. I want to say that we grumbled about that when it came on but we were having so much fun riding up the rope tow and skiing down that it didn’t really matter. It was just part of the experience. And I miss it now. I wish I could yodel well enough to do it outside the landfill kitchen. Maybe I’ll get there yet!

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 12th, 2009 at 7:38 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.