In this week's Chronicle, he relates the following story about Army Specialist Ben Osborn, a local Hero killed recently in Afghanistan. Condolences to Ben's family. May none have died in vain.
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" The best part about being young and living near a ski area is having the careless ability to rationalize blowing off (insert "responsiblities" here) and heading up to the hill for some fun.

When I was in High School in upstate New York, my friends and I would routinely play hooky and head to one of the local resorts for "powder days". I put "powder days" in quotations because 3 inches of rain was enough to trade a day of education for a day of playing in the snow.

During our junior year, our ski crew drove up to Gore mtn for what promised to be a reasonably good 6-inch fresh day of tree skiing.

Our friend Ben joined us. It was his first day on skis.

Those of you that have gone out with a beginner on their first day understand that the new guy drags down the day with his inexperience. Ben, while struggling awkwardly to click into his bindings in the liftline, made it clear he was not going to be that kind of beginner.

And while I would love to tell you that he took to skiing like a fish to water, he did not and we found ourselves waiting for him most of the day.

Ben, however. made the most of his first day on snow. Instead of overcompensating for his lack of skill, he had us cringing over in bellyaching laughter the entire day.

He'ld tell insane, over the top stories to strangers on the lift about being an Olympic hopeful or being the head of ski school or that he co-invented twin-tip skis. He had done his homework and every ride up he talked the talk.

It took everything in our power to hold back the laughter of our newbie friend saying to one of Gore's race coaches that he "got shafted by the Olympic Mogul team". Of course, then he'ld get off the lift crashing horribly and taking the ski coach with him. We'ld find ourselves on the ground with him laughing hysterically.....