By Gary Ricther
Regarding this past weekend’s event at Ft. Kent, Maine, Adam will no doubt provide his usual encouraging, realistic, useful, professionally written observations and reflections.
It may have been the simple, practical fact that it is now our son driving US to and from the events, giving me more time to reflect, or that paradigm responsibility shift from driver to passenger, and/or that amazing sunset that we drove into for those hours along that long, straight Trans Canada highway, but so many things struck me about what Mansfield Nordic Club is doing right. Whether this is exactly what Murray Banks had in mind,… and since has been carried on by enthusiasts like Andy Grab, Tim (Grampa) Weston, (you know you have reached a certain status when the kids nickname you), now Adam (Dad) Terko,….stuff is happening that is good.
Totally skipping any performance details, look at the distance and expense that MNC community members incurred this past weekend for the Eastern Cup event in Ft. Kent, ME. Regrets? – zippo,…really reveled in the weekend. +6 degrees, -15 with windchill,…bring it on – we had many skiers, many parents and supporters. We coordinated, chipped in, loaned, hauled stuff for the team, loaned personal larger vehicles! (Victoria & Dave – wow, thanks!), hauled bodies, had great nibblies and solid food, had firepit and wood at the ready if circumstances would have allowed. It was great to see things like the amount of crossover from MNC to the greater nordic community, with many alumni skiing for the academies, but still chumming with our crowd, as always, cheering on other skiers and teams, supporting skiers from throughout our state and beyond, cooling down together while covering the inevitable race postmortem, one of our den-mothers jumping in the ambulance, having a fun team dinner and the discipline and benefit of a Saturday night team meeting. Also to have individuals new and old get to know other club members better, confide and learn and teach, sometimes for hours in the rooms at night, and to see and be inspired by other skiers from all teams, like wildman-Glueck, whom Sharon and Gary hosted – to see him totally laying it all out there, then come by and visit in our wax/food room and chat uniforms, and newcomer young Jenny W. from Maine who is now a remote but full-fledged blue-green wearing family member (whom we hosted this past summer) – what a fun contribution!
And if you’re counting,… interested to see how many podium skiers wore blue/green on the outside, or have been touched by MNC in one way or another and feel some blue/green on the inside,…well,….it was a lot. More than ever, weekends like this make me realize it just doesn’t matter. We had a gas, with old friends and new.
So I for one feel an enormous gratitude to Murray, Andy, Rosemary, Ken, Kort, Sharon and others whose efforts have brought us to the point we’re at now. It is how it should be. We are truly casting a wider shadow than that of the Green Mountains, and we and others are all the better for it. Isn’t it great with all the other crap going on in America and around the world that our nordic community can be so right and so good?! And speaking of mountains, Adam is doing a mountain of work and effort to hit that ideal blend of fun and performance for so many of the kids, and I am happy to say has inspired our kid to carry on in his style by now giving back after 11? years (OMG, really? that went by) by helping with BKL. Unsolicited, he brings fun stories back already. Here’s hoping others will join him as the next generation to keep our community in the spirit that we experienced this past weekend. I know I will be reminded how right it all was, if by nothing else, on cold days the rest of this season, for the small kiss Jack Frost gave me on one of my cheeks.
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