Tag Archives: skiing

Droopy-Drawered Jibber

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Finally, one of the greatest mysteries of our time has been solved. That’s right, the mystery of the “Droopy-drawered Jibbers”.  You may not know what a Droopy-drawered Jibber is, but you’ve all seen them multiple times. They are those guys who walk around with their pants half way down to their ankles. 
The dirty little secret I’ve found out, is that it’s not their fault ! Yup, they can’t help it at all. “How do you know that?” you might be asking right now. Here’s how I found out, recently:
My third son needed a belt. He had lost his, and was playing, working, and walking around holding his pants up by his hand. He sometimes “waddled” to keep his pants up, just like the Droopy-drawered Jibbers that are 15 and 20 years older than him. My son is 5 years old.
We drove the 40 miles to town, and were looking for  a belt. First off, no, I’m not going to buy him a belt at Walmart. They fall apart, are made in China, and aren’t even leather. On top of that, Walmart thinks I want my son to wear a belt with skulls on it. Nice social statement. We went to a place that is high class, and carries clothes built to last. A place that Americans can trust and place their money into. A place of refuge from the world of cheap and superficial-JC Penny.
At J.C. Penny, we found out that they don’t carry boys belts. Neither did K Mart. Neither did Radio Shack. It became apparent that society doesn’t want boys to wear belts. It starts when they are 5 years old, and by teenage years, the boys are used to not wearing belts. So they waddle around like ducks with their legs apart, trying desperately to keep their pants above half mast.
Droopy-drawered Jibbers are most commonly seen at ski areas, like Snowmass, where I teach skiing.  You will find them mostly in the Terrain Park, the man-made area with 40 ft. jumps, and a huge halfpipe. It’s not unusual to find old couples skiing past one of the big kickers. As a 13 year old boy goes sailing over their heads doing a “roast beef”, you can often hear the husband saying, “Look, Martha! There goes a Droopy-drawered Jibber in his natural habitat!”
It’s no wonder the military isn’t recruiting as many kids. They wouldn’t be able to march. Can you imagine the U.S. Army waddling into a town to secure it?  The first thing the locals would do is show them where the public restrooms are in the park.
The direction society is going is a little bit scary . If I take my son to JC Penny and they don’t sell boys underwear, I think we’re all in trouble.



Phantom Chicken Vibrations

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It’s hard to know exactly when the phantom chicken vibrations began. Perhaps it was on a Monday during a particularly low air pressure system. In any event, they have only grown stronger…

When I was a Wilderness Ranger in Wyoming, I would travel through “the largest road-less area in the lower 48 states” for 10 days at a time. Although I had brushes with raging rivers, grizzlies, and poachers, I didn’t have a radio or a cell phone. They were worthless. And I loved it.

Teaching skiing in the 90s I guided clients and students down some of the most amazing ski runs in North America. Sometimes we found waist deep powder, steep tree runs, chutes, cliffs, and all kinds of snowy challenges. And I didn’t carry a cell phone. Fantastic.

When cell phones became fairly popular I poo poohed them. They were unnecessary. My ski clients almost universally carry them; friends and family live with them; and it’s almost assumed that you DO have a cell phone.

“What’s your cell number?” they ask as they hold up their phone, ready to add me to their address book.

“What makes you think I have a cell number?” I sometimes reply. They usually don’t know what to say.

Now my summer job requires me to carry a company cell phone. I’m a heavy equipment operator for a prestigious excavation company in the Aspen area. Which leads me to the phantom chicken vibrations.

As an equipment operator, it’s difficult to hear a phone ringing over the din of the machinery, the construction site, earplugs, and a radio set on volume number “30”. So a wise coworker helped me set my cell phone to “vibrate”.

Scrolling down the preset ring tones, I picked out a rooster crowing. Boy, is that rooster crowing popular with the temp laborers. When I go into the temp agency to pick up some help for the day, sometimes the phone goes off on maximum volume. There I am, standing in my black Carhartt pants with a rooster crowing loudly. 30 or 40 guys from not the US are all staring at me, smiling. I look at them and say “Wake up! It’s time to go to work!”

Elvin began to call my cell phone “Cheekin Leedle” and the name stuck with the other workers.

Now, whenever someone calls me, the phone vibrates against my right thigh muscle (the phone slides neatly into my Carhartt leg tool pouch) and crows. This brings me to the medical problem known as phantom chicken vibrations.

Sometimes, I go to answer the phone, only to find that there is no one there. I’m sure that I felt the phone vibrate over the bouncing of the machine. And didn’t I hear the rooster crowing? Maybe that was just a soundbite of Hillary Clinton on the radio. Similar pitch and tone.

Now I feel phantom chicken vibrations while driving my car, shopping for cheap milk, and laying in bed. Are they real? Am I just paranoid that I’ll miss a call? Who knows.

I know of a guy who was a professional trucker his entire life. His wife once told me that he used to shift gears in his sleep. Maybe I’m in good company. I’m just glad that I don’t throw knives for a living.