Old Farmer Joe, the Flying Finn

Yesterday trudged through the snow, drifts of snow that would swallow a child, huge drifts that captured pickup trucks, mountains of snow so sensuous that a bent and gnarled Vermont dairy farmer by the name of Joe leaped up from his wheelchair by the fire, slapped on a pair of rusty skies from the wall, put on his GI helmet from WW II, and roared, "If I die in this last run, let it be with a fit of glory." With a stiff shot of Wild Turkey, a bellowing roaring hellacious shout that woke up the black bears from their slumbering winter reverie Farmer Joe took off like a greased pinball. Well not that elegant, he looked like marionette on Ritalin and a double dose of espresso, he flew in a whirling pirouette, akimbo, the geometry of space and time defied, one ski to the ground the other at an impossible angle defying the expectations of physics and a withered arthritic body.

His wife Maude looked out the window and said, "Damn!" Get the hell off the mountain you crazy old coot!"
She was so angry and knew that Joe couldn't hear a damn thing since he lost his hearing aid nearly a decade ago. A determined tenth generation Vermont woman, she grabbed her 12 gauge shot gun from over the fire place, popped in a few shells, and turned to the mountain where Joe was coming over the hill so fast and with such acrobatic improbability he could pass for Shaun White or one of those other snowboarding fools.

Joe was ready for the last half mile when Maude let loose with a shotgun blast to get his attention. As she was to tell the police, I didn't want to hurt the SOB, I just wanted to get his attention. Well, the road to salvation and perdition are both lined with the best of intentions, and in equal measures in some cases, most time not. So when she aimed at the mountain ridge, a good 25 yards behind his head, she didn’t fully take into account the wind, barometric pressure, or the fact she didn’t have glasses on. Maude couldn’t find the thick coke bottle glasses, but she could find her way around the house just fine. As to the shot, well, it was a fine and splendid shot, as accurate as one could expect. Amazingly enough, it was exactly 25 yards behind his head, so crisp and powerful, it knocked her half way cross the kitchen, but the real fun was just about to begin, or at least from some people’s point of view.

The ledge of snow, ice, and debris that had been building up on the rock ledge gave a ferocious shudder, and even old farmer Joe who was in the most glorious rapture, envisioning himself as the Flying Finn, as a an Olympian athlete trapped in the rusty vestments of an old coot, that was until the avalanche woke him up. He took a gander behind him, it looked like the jaws of death with jagged white teeth ready to chomp him up. Not just, chomp, chomp, and chew him up. This one was going to chew him up and spit him right out into the Pearly Gates, perhaps delivered in a few dozen pieces.

Even the Flying Finn never flew in such a fleeting ferocious flurry. In the midst of fear that would have killed even the most mortal of men, Old Joe, casual as a professional assassin was unmoved. He moved the wad of Red Chief chew tobacco to his other cheek, gave a long gnarled brown spit, crouched down as much as he could, tucked the poles under his arm, and gave a banshee come hell or high water scream, “Yahooooooo! It’s death or glory!” Some accounts who witnessed old Joe’s race down the mountain some described it as a Baryshnikov on skis, others as the Flying Finn, and those more jaundiced like his friend Josiah said, “Damn fool, put on his hat and jacket, but forgot to put on his pants! The boy gotta’ be careful, something important might fall off.” Yes, folks, a half naked Vermont dairy farmer out of control, skiing on one leg and the other at the most peculiar of right angles, chased by an avalanche down the side of the steepest mountain in all of Southern Vermont.

Death and old Joe were neck and neck, Death nipped at his skis and chewed a chunk or two, a boulder of ice flew by his head and nicked his ear, the avalanche was gaining, but Joe determined to beat the old SOB of Death. “I’ve been here for 90 years and Death I ain’t going with you!” As he took the most monstrous of moguls, a sixty-foot ravine and faster than a Shelby Mustang in fifth gear, he hit that mountain. Up, up, up high he flew! For good measure, or perhaps for dumb, real dumb luck, he did a double back flip and through some miracle no one could quite explain, he fly so high and far that he wound up in a feathery soft snow bank outside his front door. Head peering up from the snow, skis impaled on the wall of the house, and he looked up to see the beet red face of his wife.
Maude said, “What took you so damn long to get off the mountain!”