Marc Comtois

In 1993 I worked as a merchant mariner on ship anchored in the lagoon of Diego Garcia, which is a small island in the Indian Ocean that serves as a staging ground for the U.S. military.  Back then, I paid $100 once a week to talk to my fiance for 30 minutes.  I waited for her letters like they were gold.  17 years and two kids later, it was enough to help get us through! But it was tough.  Nowadays, people in the same situation can email regularly, talk on the phone via the web and even "skype" each other to see the ones they love.  Keeping a long-distance relationship is certainly easier now. 

As I was driving to my soccer game last night, the snow was coming down, the roads were a mess and the Beastie Boys "No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn" came on the radio. This confluence of events called to mind the winter I spent working the T-bar at Hermon Mountain ('86-'87). Weekends and late week nights spent in the cold, earning some $ and screwing off with a bunch of Hermon and Bangor guys were a blast. A bunch of college-bound kids tasked with keeping a diesel-engine driven ski lift running? Yeah, that worked out well! Then there was the T-bar rocket seating method, where we would put the smart-ass little kids on the lift, but hold the bar long enough to get the spring inside the bar full of tension. Then RELEASE and aaaaahhhhh! Hey, we thought it was funny. Snowball fights, sliding down Cloud Nine on snow shovels, working in the rental shop and setting bindings without having a CLUE as to what the hell I was doing...good times! *Originally written...