Downhill

“I’ve made a huge mistake”

G.O.B. Bluth’s catch phrase, swirled through my head as I gasped for air and stared at my nemesis.  The subject of my panic was beyond the pale of human treachery.  It was a field of “competition approved” moguls on Kagura Mountain in the heart of the Japan Alps.  At the behest of my eigh-year-old son, Masaki, I was about to descend the course for the tenth time in one afternoon.  Despite the inclement weather, I could track his broad, encouraging smile several bumps down the hill.

“You’re doing GREAT, Dad!” he chortled, egging me on to further torment!  “One more time!”

Gasping for high-altitude oxygen, I pondered why in the world I had signed up for this.  Mogul skiing, like moving house, is an act of voluntary suffering.  I had devised a feckless calculus that, at the spry age of 52, I should be able to navigate a field of monster bumps twice as deftly as when I was 26.  But moguls demand quad strength, bravado and lungs, all of which have diminished over the years.  Faintly, I recalled marveling at Ikuma Horishima’s gutsy final run in Beijing 2022.  The effort had earned him a podium spot for Men’s Moguls as well as the respect and admiration of my son.  Indeed, Masaki had vowed that we too would slay the bumps on our next ski trip after the Olympics.  And now that time had come.  

“What are you waiting for, Dad!?!?” Masaki bellowed.  “You will KILL it . . . again!”

And so I did.  Like the rest of you who love to ski, I somehow summon a last measure of focus and effort on the final tough run of the day.  Each of these is a gift of pure joy wrapped in a thin fail of pain.

Masaki, his cousin Eita, my brother-in-law, Daisuke (a competitive snowboarder back in the day) and I sailed down the last easy groomer of an epic afternoon and all the way to the parking lot.  Once there I began the ritual of removing my boots, breathing a great and cheerful sigh of fatigue and then demolishing a Snickers bar in the car.

Masaki, rosy cheeked and grinning, thieved the last bite and inquired about my tradition.

“Dad, you always eat Snickers bars on ski trips,” he inquired.

“You, Mashi, that’s a really good question,” I answered.  “I guess I eat them because that’s what my dad and I used to enjoy together on ski trips to North Star.  I mean, it’s not a great candy bar really is it?”

“And you always love to have a hot spring and a cold beer after we ski, Dad” he observed.

“Yes, you’re right,” I noted.  “I do really love that ritual, too.”

“You love to cook spaghetti bolognese on ski trips, and you always chit chat with the people who sell us lift tickets,” he went on. “What’s up with that?”

The answer to his questions lay in the middle seat of the second row of a maroon 1980 Volvo touring wagon.  The vehicle was typical of the safe-minded thrift emblematic of Northern California in the days of my youth.  But the pilot was anything but common.

Dr. Myron Turbow M.D. was my father’s go-to ski buddy when Winters came to the Sierra. A man of letters, spirit, no, scratch that, of ruach and intellect, his Field Operative handle was “Dr. Tubby”. While my dad enjoyed taking my brother, Todd, on marathon father-son weekend excursions to North Star in his green Buick La Sabre, he preferred teaming up with Dr. Tubby. The high-C’s offered an elevated diversion from the trials of managing my brother and me solo for 36 hours (my mom, like Mrs. Turbo, thought trips to Lake Tahoe were for the Canadian Mounted Police and/or extras on the set of the Godfather).

My father and Dr. Tubby were the same on paper, but had distinct strengths.  They had been developed in the New Settlement farm system of hard work, doting family members and higher education that our People could only have access to in America.  While my father was an Alpha-type, deep thinking and somewhat serious, Dr. Tubby was a man of constant cheer and hope. 

The divergence of personal style was reflected in how they skied.  My father, a former down lineman in College, surmised that he could bend the mountain to his will, muscling his way through each turn and bump.  Dr. Tubby, in contrast, flowed effortlessly down even the steepest hills.  He sported dark turtle necks to compliment his navy Bogner parka.  As memory serves, he donned rare, square-framed Vaurnets to avoid the glare of the California sun bursting off the snowbanks.

But it was his manner off the slopes that afforded an ad-hoc master class in style and menschkeit.  He greeted everyone from the cheerful lift-ticket hawkers at the bottom of Logger’s Loop to the crusty host at Dingus McGee’s with charm and curiosity.  He is the only patron I have ever seen waved back to a ski ticket window for a repeat performance of the previous day’s purchase.

And Dr. Tubby was a bon vivant to boot.  I recall one ski trip lunchtime out on the deck of the North Star main lodge at the bottom of C and D lifts.  It was an epically sunny seen, and as my father and I hunkered down with our PB&J Oroweat sandwiches I glanced Dr. Tubby out of the corner of my eye.  He was removing small packages of wax paper from his backpack and arranging them on the table in front of him.  Then one by one, he attentively opened each revealing the discreet ingredients of what would turn out to be a magnificent mid-mountain sandwich.  Slices of rustic bread, portions of cheese and smoked turkey stacked one over the other.  The tomatoes, cut fresh at the last minute before leaving our ski condo, were added for the finishing touch along with a dollop of grainy mustard.

“Dr. Tubby,” I imparted.  “Isn’t that a lot of trouble to go through just to have lunch?  I mean, is it REALLY better?”

He retorted by deploying a trusty Swiss Army knife and carefully extracting a finger-sized portion for me to try.  It really was better, and after savoring it I glanced at my mushed PB&J feeling very much one down.

“Just because you’re a sportsman, does not make you a Philistine, Adam,” he noted with a smile.  “A little extra effort makes a lot of difference when it comes to lunch.  Soggy tomatoes have no place on the ski hill.”

“Delicious!” my dad exclaimed.  “It’s even better than yesterday’s sandwich!  How did you do it, Myron???”

“Yesterday was a Jarlsburg day, Neill,” he enjoined.  “Today is a Munster day.”

It was at that moment that I realized the importance of rituals in Life.  Those ski trips with Dr. Tubby were chock full of them.  The fancy schmancy sandwiches.  The driving gloves he would sport to navigate the pea-soup fog of I-80 on the ride home.  Ratcheting up our Nordicas until we lost all blood circulation in our feet.  And taking off said Nordicas while enjoying Swiss Miss with extra marshmallows.  My father putting on his rainbow suspenders to hoist up his ski pants and give him the air of someone who had failed a clown audition.

In the modern day, I have come to form my own traditions on ski trips with my wife and children.  Letting ​​Fantôme (the sixth studio album from Hikaru Utada) play on repeat as we drive into the gloaming light of the Hakuba Valley.  Whipping together spaghetti bolognese after a day on the slopes.  Building yuki daruma.  Complaining with supreme style about how crowded the parking lots are.

On the way back from our mogul mishaps Masaki and I were in a rush.  We had 33 minutes until our shinkansen departure from Yuzawa bound for Tokyo, and we brazenly reckoned that we had time to take a quick onsen and buy a bento for the ride.  A quick map query pointed to a public hot spring 300 meters from the train station.  31 minutes later, we sat in our non-reserved seats bound for Tokyo Station, warmed by the thermal waters and the memories we had made together on the trip.

“We have a new ski trip tradition, dad,” Masaki proudly noted.  “Taking the world’s fastest onsen before we go home!”

The best tale about Dr. Tubby was one of imperious misdirection and grace.  It occurred on the evening of January 29th 1983, the I became a Bar Mitzvah.   Months of chanting trope, rehearsing my speech and, in the words of Cantor David Unterman, “a-NUN-ciating!” had paid off during the morning service.  Now, in the humble confines of Congregation Beth Am’s social hall, the party of the century was underway.  

My mishpochah had flown in from such exotic locations as Lincolnwood, Illinois and North Miami Beach, Fla.  As with most Osney-Katz-Brownstein simchas, booze flowed liberally, and my Aunt Inez errantly chose to hit the Prosecco bar early and often.  By the time we were in the fifth candle lighting by Aunt Tuttles and Uncle Conrad, my father’s baby sister was splayed out in the bathroom.  As memory serves, it was the men’s bathroom.  Fortunately, our family had a special operative for such missions. 

My grandfather, Moishi aka “Papa” (Inez and Neill’s father) burst into the bathroom to fist berade and then extract his daughter.  A hard-scrabble immigrant who fled Ukraine after the May 1917 Revolution, Papa got his first job in America as a bootlegger in Chicago.  Legend has it that the org chart rolled all the way up to Al Capone.  As such, he decried anyone in the family who was a lightweight.

“What’s the matter with YUUUUUUUUU!!!” he shouted at Aunt Inez in a thick Konstantinov accent.  “Can’t you hold your liquor?!?!  You and Bruce are the sixth candle!  You’re on deck, Nezzie!!!”

The whole thing caused quite a commotion. Perhaps due to mild PTSD I cannot recall if the ruckus was confined to my extended family or to the broader set of guests who included among them California WASPs and California Jews, who, themselves, were very WASPy.  In the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter.  What does matter is what occurred next.

Sensing we needed to both stall and to bring the mood up, Dr. Tubby stood at the center of the social hall.  He began to clap his hands, beckoning the crowd to join him.  Then he started to sing with such frailechdich that even I, an unfeeling 13-year-old boy, was overcome with a sense of wonder and hope. 

“Siman tov u’mazel tov, siman tov u’mazel tov, siman tov u’mazel tov . . . “ he crooned.  “Let’s celebrate the Bar Mitzvah bocher!”

The crowd followed suit, clapping and swaying to the lead of our Pied Piper of Ruach.  Now, even the Boston Brahmins and Central Coast Esalen Institute cohorts were getting into the mix.  

“Yehe lanu, ye-HE lanu!  Ulechol Yisrael!  Yehe lanu, yehe lanu. Ulechol Yisrael . . . “

Issuing a festive glance to his dear friend, my dad, Dr. Tubby faded from the spotlight.  It was time for him to go and for the candle lighting to proceed.  He had saved the day with a song and a smile.  

I believe it was either Seneca or Barry Manilow who quipped, “It’s not what you did that will make people remember you.  It’s how you made them feel.”

It is hard to think of a better example of that wisdom set into motion than Dr. Tubby. 

This post is dedicated to the memory and impact of Dr. Myron “Mike” Turbow aka Dr. Tubby.