Eugene register-guard., February 28, 1937, Image 21

r
Certainly
s
Foo
Toy
Land
On Y
uir
Feet
ki-Iumping Is Thrilling But You
lust Have Plenty Of Old Gumption
By Richard W. Emery
,, TOU have to do is just give a little puff.
Ul1 .... .i, ika like smoke. The snow is
Tour or" - - . .. ....... .
. .. that it kirks ud like flour.
f" look like tired old giants all bent
load of flour sacks. The girls and
'wr. .a. .11 set for a big lark In the
iVrtwr the lev road they tramp together,
E, more noise than a zoo on moving day.
Li mow we've had In years." says the
I" !.,. -inh9 it. Skiine has been on
VP' .-... ivu vp.irs. As a snort, that ls.-
.wrvx I"' j -
... vaar We
I . -irk at. This year we'll have skiing
J into May. and there will be many a new
before the season ends!"
M tie road come clomping two young
.mi Nordic, the other, a Latin. Over their
olden, like army rifles, they carry their skis.
Jvow there you see a couple of skiers as good
Lu tod." the Ranger says. "Just youngsters
hrt they've got what it takes."
Wre got what it takes. The Nordic lad.
i johMon-bora 21 years ago as Arthur
ujnel Johnson in a royal Canadian ski family,
, worshipper of his illustrious and beloved
tie great Nels Nelsen he's done 218 feet
iiill yearns for more. The Latin lad, Paul
neln. not quite so celebrated among young
hut still a coming champ, life-long corn-
La of Johnson he, too, hopes for a great
C nine day that will bring him a crown in
jtogoom oi aiuuuiu.
to cant help wondering whether the two
of ski jumpers will be able to walk back to
i lodge as sturdily this afternoon after their
hbition jumps. You stand beside the Ranger
I! your numb fingers trying to strike a match
d jou feel sorry for two such fine youngsters
a in a half hour or so, will be sailing at 80
let an hour high, high above the frozen snow,
lile the gay boys and girls hold their breaths
lot once. And then you hear the Ranger talk
ibout skiing.
"lis the cleanest sport in the world," he says,
dging a snowball. "These boys have been train-
Eill their lives, you can i scan ski jumping
jut sliding down the course. You'd only have
one lesson."
didn't have enough snow to
l uikli in niue wooiens goes scooung Dy on
A i runaway toboggan. It piles into a snow
Bt The girl digs out, transformed from a blue
M to an animated snowman. A man and a
and a ten-year old boy come straggling
pL The man holds a big snowball. The boy
toiling. The woman Is berating the man and
wheedling the boy to stop his wrathful yells. The
Ranger turns his, back on the noisy three.
"Skiing takes you up where the mountains are
all yours, clean and white, the way God made
'em," he says. "Cross-country skiing is what has
put the sport on its feet lately. Ski-jumping is
all right for experts but no good for the run-of--
the-mill skier who just wants a day's outing.
With a few lessons anybody can ski.
"Of course, a real skier has to have plenty of
stamina. I mean he has to have physical strength,
endurance, courage and a lot of other qualities.
When you go sliding down a mountainside 40
miles an hour and you come to a place where
you have to turn well, you have to know when
and how, or you'll plaster yourself against a tree,
or take a tallspin Into the next canyon."
Down at the ski jump the crowd has taken
its place at the foot of an incline glazed wit"
ice. Away up at the top, where the trees are a.i
shriveled from the wind, a black speck has
everyone's attention. The black speck moves. It's
coming down the slide, a man riding a couple
of slippery sticks. He goes out of sight for a
second and then reappears in the patch of sky
between tall treetops. He whizzes through the
air like a widgeon duck getting ready to alight
on a pond. He hits the snow, bobs from the shock,
and has slid another 200 feet before you can de
cide whether you'd rather try high-platform div
ing, like Steve Brodie, or just plain parachute
jumping.
Afterwards, over at the Ski Club dormitory,
Art Johnson and Paul DePietro, and three or
four other skiers lounge in a warm little room
full of bunks, skis, books, coats and boots. Art
learned to ski, you discover, when he was "about
three or four." .
"But all the kids learn young there in Revel
stoke," says the blonde jumper. "That's only 128
miles from Lake Louise and we get plenty of
snow there. I used to ski to school with my
sister."
A little pole vaulting when he was in Revel
stoke High School was the only other sport to
which the young British Canadian gave much
energy. He sailed over the bar at nine and a half
feet, but because of his uncle he knew he could
sail higher on skis.
UNCLE NELS, Canadian ski authority and
officer of the Canadian Amateur Ski Asso
ciation, was enough to inspire any nephew.
Never will Art forget the glory of that day in
1925 when Uncle Nels glided Buperbly to a
world's championship amateur record of 240 feet.
Of course, the Norwegians now recognize a new
record, a 313-foot jump.
But for that matter, Art has another uncle,
Ivind Nelsen. Uncle Ivind is a member of the
Revelatoke Ski Club. In 1936, just to show Art
Eighty Miles an Hour 1 hrough' the Treetops, Just Before Coming to Earth on a Ski Jump.
It's Fun If You Land on Your Feet!
that the same family can have two famous
uncles, he won the ski-jumping championship of
British Columbia. '
"When I first began jumping in contests, I
guess I wasn't more than six years old," says the
nephew, from his bunk in the warm little Ski
Club room. "Anyhow, I couldn't look over a table, .
I could jump about 25 feet." : .
From Class E Art moved to Class D, then to
Class C and, when he passed his sixteenth birth
day, to Class B. The only way to get out of
Class B is to win a championship.
Art's jumping began to figure In contests out
side RevelBtoke when he was a fourth-grader in
school. At Nakusp, B. C, he jumped nearly 60
feet, a whale of a jump for a nine-year-old. He
began to bring home trophies won In ski contests.
In following years he lined his room with cups,
ribbons, fancy sweaters and other prizes. He
owns 13 trophy cups.
"And even with 13, I don't feel unlucky," he
says.
He stayed In the B Class until 1932, when on a
brisk day at Revelstoke he cleared 166 feet and
won a championship. That jump boosted him Into
Class A. Since then he has jumped in six Class A
tournaments. Two were at Revelstoke, two at
Vancouver and two at Big Pine, California.
Art made his longest Jump In the International
Invitational Ski Tournament at Big Pine last
year, a Jump from the Class B take-off. Wind
and an icy underbill prevented Jumpers from
using the Class A course. Art sailed to 218 feet.
He won't crow over his good Jumps, but his long
time friend Paul DePietro proudly says that Art
this season "will do 240 to 250 feet."
"Well, I'll try darned hard." Art admits.
PAUL, 22 years old, is a Class B jumper and
a member of the Big Pine Ski Club at Swart
out, California. He learned to manage skis when
he was In tender years at Revelsoke, whence his
Italian parents had migrated. It was In the
K'itish Columbian city that he and Art began
skiing together. They are still skiing together
and, betweerv times, studying Diesel engineering.
In the little Ski Club room, while the air outside
is so cold "hat the breath of the frolicking visi
tors looks like white wood-smoke, the two com
panions and their fellow-skiers give you a few
pointers to help you save a few bones unbroken, ,
if you ever take up skiing.
"Buy only good skis," they warn.
"Be sure they have a good harness, not Just
toe clips.
' "Learn to walk on your skis first. Thon ski on
a gentle slope. Gradually work up. Take it easy."
, If you don't take it easy at first, you may
never, never bo able to start down from toe top
of a dazzling mountainside, with the wind of
your own speed whipping tears out of your eyes
as you reach, at 80 miles an hour, the brink of
what looks like a vast canyon full of snow.
You may never, never be able unless you
take it easy at first to time perfectly that her
culean leap at the take-off, that spring which
shoots the hurtling ski-Jumper into a sky-scraping
arc.
You may never, never be able to have that
insurpassable thrill of seeing all the white world
rushing up at you as If to flatten you perman
ently against the snow and good old solid rock.
Those delights you may miBs if you live a soft
city life and refuse to "take It easy" while learn
ing the A, B, C's of ski jumping. Other thrills
you may iind In the cross-country rambling,
known as slalom racing in which, Incidentally,
young Johnson has won a championship. But
those greater heart-bumps are found In skiing
like a human hydroplane when all the earth la
coming up to meet you
"The declivity of the course, Just after the
take-off, is 45 percent," one of the experts is say
ing. "Your angle to the face of the hill la a
right angle, so you see, that is why the ground
of the outrun seems to be flying up at you. No,
you never think of an accident. Why, all I ever
got In all these years of Jumping was just a
sprained ankle." . ; ,
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