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THE BREAK-IN
Once upon a time (when we were younger) we were able to ski places like Paradise off of the single chair at Mad River Glen. This was our favorite destination, in spite of the lack of snowmaking and serious grooming. As compleat skiers, we were driven to catch the first chair at the morning opening and the last one up before closing in the afternoon.
Closing the bar was also requisite.
The highlight of one particular day was encountering an ice ledge halfway down in very low visibility due to fog. Along with a few regulars who knew the terrain, I jumped between the tree trunks and disappeared into the mist. My friend Don, who I was introducing to MRG, was intimidated by the steepness and poor visibility, so he took his skis off and climbed around the ice ledge. By the end of the day we had him leaping over the ice too.
At the end of the day, we retired to the bar and consumed a few beers/bourbons. Some of our group headed back home to the Clifton Park area, while others decided that fatigue and alcohol limited their driving ability. Mary Kuykendall, Don and I headed down to Gallaghers, with me driving Mary’s Jeep. I attributed the weaving on the road to the Jeep’s short wheelbase. Gallaghers was our favorite nearby watering hole (that no longer exists). Back in the day, Phish played there, and while the drummer would play an 8-10 minute Caravan solo that brought the house down, the rest of the band would take a break and leave the stage. A favorite late night song chorus that got everyone screaming was “You’ve got to live for yourself and nobody else”.
Our plan for the night was to sleep at Dick Weber’s house in nearby Warren, VT. Our assumption was that he had a key stashed where we could find it. When this turned out to be wrong, Mary went to the local airport in the belief that they would have a key (Dick was a pilot). Meanwhile Don and I worked at breaking in with minimum damage. We succeeded in gaining access to the bedroom wing, but not the main house. The bedroom wing was connected to the main house through a breezeway. When Mary returned from her unsuccessful mission, we decided that our least destructive option was to forcefully break in through the front door, which we did.
Inside we found no heat and no water. After turning up the heat and starting a fire in the fireplace, we started troubleshooting the water problem. We found a small utility closet that had a 100 watt light bulb to keep it warm, but the bulb had burned out. We found a propane torch. Application of the propane torch to the copper pipes removed the ice from the frozen, but not yet broken water pipes. While waiting for the house to warm up, we consumed some more beer and enjoyed the fire. Eventually we retired and got up early enough to raid the kitchen for breakfast, repair the front door and go skiing somewhere (memory failure). Don still notes that this was the first and last time that he passed out and woke up to begin drinking again three times in one evening.
The Epilogue to this story is that “the dog lived”. Sometime after our departure, while plowing the driveway, the operator heard something in the bedroom wing of the house. He found a dog! I continue to deny responsibility, but consensus is that the dog gained entry while we were studying our break-in options.
