The right side of the brain is the control center for emotions, intuition, creativity, art and music whereas the left side of the brain is responsible for logic, language, reasoning, analysis and math. In 1981 an American neuropsychologist shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology for his work in split brain research and this work led to the right brain-left brain theory. To put this right brain-left brain theory in simple terms and in the context of stories like this, consider the case of a young man who has been dating two young women. One has shiny black hair, a face like a Greek doll, nice tits, hips and ass built for action, is a teller at Wells Fargo and whose father drives a ready mix truck in Petaluma. The other young woman, Miss Plain Jane, has ragged light brown hair, pimples, thin lips, no eye brows, a flat chest and is the only daughter of a 74 year-old widower who has suffered 3 heart attacks and who owns 11% of all Google shares. The right side of the young man's brain is going to be pushing him towards the black haired beauty. The left side, on the other hand, is going to go to bat for Miss Plain Jane.
I was looking uphill and expounding on sled handling techniques to two of the ski patrol trainees when frantic shouts interrupted me. Turning towards downhill, I saw a disaster beginning to unfold. The other two trainees who had been handling the Sun Valley rescue toboggan and Tom, the patrolman who had been playing the part of a victim riding in the sled, were lying in the snow and the sled was careening downhill and picking up speed. Bruce, my instructor colleague who had been supervising the trainees on the sled, made a run for the tail rope, but as he skied over it, the knot at the end knocked his skis out from under him and he went down too.
Just as I moved to go after the sled, a skier shot by me. At first skating to pick up speed, then crouched and tucked, the skier headed straight for the sled. Nearly on top of the rear end of the sled, the skier tossed his/her poles and rolled over the tail rope.
My "What the fuck?" was drowned by the shouts of the others and the action continued as the amazing took place right before my eyes. Continuing the roll, the skier came up with skis still on and fists clenching the tail rope. In what seemed like a fluid continuation of the action, the skier managed to get his skis across the fall line and start braking. The tail rope was sliding through his clenched fists. Surely he would get knocked over when the knot at the end of the rope reached his hands.
But there was no knockdown. The skier managed to hang on, skis braking, throwing up clouds of snow, bouncing over moguls. Slowly but surely, he brought the sled to a stop. Heart pounding, I realized what an exhibition of agility and strength I had just witnessed. I also began to realize that as instructor in charge of the exercise, I had just been spared some pretty serious reputation damage.
Getting down to the skier who had saved the day, I recognized him as a trainee named Clyde, to whom seconds before, I'd been explaining sled handling technique. Bruce, now up and back on his skis, came down and took over the handles of the sled. Everyone was speechless. I was the first to speak. Turning to Clyde, "Where'd you ever learn to do that?"
He replied in a distinctly non-Californian accent and with an economy of words that would have shamed Clint Eastwood and Robert Mitchum. "Didn't." After a noticeable hesitation, he continued, "Jis did it."
I probably went overboard with thanks and praise. His reddening face told me when it was time to shut up. In my defense though, the Sun Valley toboggans we were using weighed close to 150 pounds. You don't have to be a physicist or engineer to imagine the injuries a 150-pound sled, screaming downhill out of control, could cause to a person. On any ski slope at Twin Peaks on a weekend, there are lots of persons around to get hit. Put it how you want to, we were damn fortunate that Clyde got the sled stopped.
Bruce and Clyde took the sled down to a flatter place and we all took a break. I needed it to give my legs time to stop shaking.
After the lifts closed and we'd skied the sweep, I invited the four trainees to join me for a beer. That wasn't expected nor was it normal. At the time I thought I was doing it so they wouldn't blab too much over the morning's near catastrophe. (I was clearly at fault because with trainees running a sled, there should have been a second tail rope with a regular patroller on it.) In truth, there was another reason and I hold my right brain responsible because it was supposed to not let me get too interested in a young trainee named Clyde.
The other three trainees, being with my own San Francisco Patrol, I was already acquainted with. But not Clyde, he was with the Twin Peaks Patrol. Rolly, the mountain manager at Twin Peaks, had called me earlier in the week and asked if I could squeeze one of their trainees into my planned sled handling exercise. That trainee turned out to be Clyde.
After what he did and after meeting him, I couldn't help myself. I needed to know more about him. When you want to find out more about someone, there's a fine line between polite curiosity and nosiness. I cautiously worded my first question. "Rolly said you're doing lots of skiing. You live up here somewhere?"
"Sort of. Housesitting. Friends of my parents have this house up here. Don't use it in winter. Worry about a break-in."
"So a good deal for everybody -- like win-win?"
"Yeah." After a few seconds hesitation and probably in response to my questioning look, he became more talkative. "Dad and Mom live in Sacramento. I went to high school there."
So I was right about the accent. He hadn't grown up in Sacramento. Right away that morning when we'd met, I'd noticed the accent, not strong, just noticeable and pleasant. No not just pleasant, actually sort of sexy, almost addictive. Great Plains? Wyoming? Idaho? Southwest? Arizona? Utah? But there was also a faint touch of Oklahomese. Could he have grown up in California's Central Valley? In the Central Valley, there were communities where 2nd and 3rd generation descendants of the Dust Bowl migration still speak Oklahomese.
Fuck politeness, I had to know more. "So you grew up somewhere else -- not in Sacramento?"
"It's kinda complicated. Dad's an operating engineer -- heavy equipment operator -- bulldozers, graders, loaders, that sort of thing. Used to be a boomer, you know, chased the big jobs. We moved a lot. Oklahoma, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Arizona."
"But now your folks are in Sacramento?"
"Yeah. When I got old enough for high school, Mom said we couldn't be nomads anymore. Then Dad got work on a big interstate job around Sacramento and they stayed."
He was starting to open up. I liked hearing his voice and I liked hearing what he had to say. "Interesting the way your mother saw your family as nomads."
"Yeah, that's how it is with boomers. Rented houses, trailer parks, I counted up once, went to 5 different grade schools. But, hey Kitty, you sound like you come from somewhere else too. Like back east, but not 100% so."
My curiosity about him still wasn't satisfied but I found myself so pleased that he was interested in me that I couldn't help giving him a sketchy version of my background. I told him that my mixed bag accent was from being originally from Boston and then going to Minnesota where I finished high school and went to college. I didn't want to elaborate much. The story behind why I moved in with an aunt in Minnesota is not something I wanted to get into with him -- or anyone else I didn't know really, really well. Fortunately, Clyde didn't ask about that.
"So then you went from Minnesota to California?"
"By way of Seattle." I didn't want that to go any further either. Some people, particularly men, get intimidated when I tell them I have a PhD and that I'm a tenured professor at UCSF.
He must have sensed that I wanted to hold back and had the street smarts to change the direction of the conversation. "Somebody said you're a nurse. Did I get that right?"
"You heard right, Clyde. Gave me a big advantage in passing the first aid test."
He nodded and grinned understanding. Then turning to look at me, he spoke in a soft confessional tone of voice. "Kitty, I'm a little weak on the first aid end of things." Then in a slightly different tone that had a unique effect on me, "You could probably teach me plenty."
The second sentence could have been taken as a compliment, but the tone of his voice said it was more -- like an opening line. I knew I should tell him he should just volunteer to help out the nurses in the first aid room. My left brain was frantically telling my right brain to keep the lid on my emotions, but the battle was hopeless. The only concession I made to the left side was to keep my tone of voice neutral. "If you want Clyde, you can ski with me tomorrow and I'll sign up for a half day in the first aid room so we're sure to get some action."
"You'd do that? Sounds like a winner. Let's shake on it!" When we clasped hands to shake on it, his calluses told me that whatever work he did, his hands really caught hell. I had avoided asking him what he did for a living because I was pretty sure he hadn't gone beyond high school and he might have some low-paid, low-skill job that he wouldn't be very proud of. It turned out that I was right on the first count and very wrong on the second.
That night I dreamt about something I'd never experienced in real life - rough callused hands fondling my breasts. When I woke up, my legs were apart and my crotch felt wet. I knew I had to get things under control.
Experience, both personal and professional, had biased me against certain types of relationships. For one thing, I had long ago sworn off hooking up with colleagues at work or guys in the ski patrol. If there was promise of something long term - well that would be different, but the promise would have be damn strong. But a quick hook-up for sex, no way, the potential for complications was just too big.
Another thing my personal and professional experience had taught me was the danger inherent to relationships with big age gaps. A wife at 38 and a 21 year-old husband? It works at first, the wife likes Junior's virility, Junior likes wife's experience and lack of inhibitions. Later, wife is 57 and junior is 40, she's post menopausal and losing libido fast. He's going to start looking at 20's and 30's.
