Disneyland over ice
SQUAW VALLEY — Don’t ask me what I’m doing up here, white-faced and lost amid the man-tanned brutes in their ski boots and the girls all slim and glamorous in their stretch pants. To me, a slalom is still something that looks like a typographical error and a schuss sounds like what has to be a dirty word in German — but I figure anything that cost $13 million must be worth looking at. And it is. In case you haven’t got the word yet, the Winter Olympics are a smash hit, and I’m happy to be among the last to admit it. Even if your skiing wardrobe consists of nothing more than your mother’s GI shoes and Red Cross mittens from World War II, I say get up here before it’s too late. It won’t last forever, you know.
Determined to live dangerously — is there any other way these days? — I flew to Reno with a reasonably gay group of San Franciscans: Nancy and Bob Gros, Madelene Russell, Marjorie Stern, the Tom Grays, Bud Levitas — oh, ever so many people like that. Full of quips and ChapSticks, we boarded a United Convair that made a great sprint down the runway, changed its mind half way along, and limped back to the terminal with one ski feathered. Quippier than ever, we boarded another Convair and this one did fine — although it seemed to me, as leader of the nervous flyers of America, that the pilot changed his pitch more often than Stu Miller. No matter. It was a smooth ride and gave the lie to Collie Small’s ancient description of any flight between S.F. and Reno: “It’s a cinch. You get on, have lunch, get sick, and you’re there.”
As we approached Reno Airport, a young man in the seat next to me, name of Carl Stern, observed: “It’s too bad they don’t hold the Winter Olympics in the summer when the weather is better” — a remark I found so convulsively funny I jotted it down and am herewith throwing away. Even the weather is co-operating. Reno is snappy clear and cool. Squaw Valley is even better. And the hospitality is downright warm: I was met at Reno Airport by District Attorney Bill Raggio, who fed me a drink in the handsome new terminal building and roared me to the Mapes Hotel with red light blinking and siren screaming. I cowered in the back seat and did my best to look like a criminal. I don’t know who Raggio thought I was, but I hope he doesn’t find out I’m not even syndicated.
After checking in at the International Press Club atop the Mapes, I set out for Squaw, stretch pants stretching one way and I another. Near the entrance to the valley, I came across my first exclusive: Publicist Ken Macker’s radiator had burst and he was on his knees before an adamant highway patrolman, asking for a tow. Implored Macker, “I’m late for the Donner Party.” Not even a smile.
Forging on — press agents are expendable — I passed the parking lot, gleaming in the sun. “If that ground begins to melt,” commented Kevin Keating, “and those cars begin to sink, that’ll be the biggest used car lot in the world.” Further along, Danny Kaye was signing autographs. “You must be someone important,” said the wife of a State Senator named Johnson. “What’s your name?” “Kaye,” said Danny. “First name?” asked she. “Danny,” said Kaye. “What do you do?” she inquired. “I’m an atomic engineer,” he replied. She looked pleased. “How wonderful,” she said. “I guess that’ll show the Russians.”
Puzzling over that, since the Russians seemed to be showing up in the games, I continued past the charming chalets lining the road into Squaw — and there, exciting under the bright sun, was the scene itself: the already familiar ice arena, the daredevils whizzing off the ski jumps above, squiggly figures zigzagging down the leathery white slopes, and everybody talking about the downhill slalom to the complete exclusion of the uphill Chessman.
I got my second exclusive near the entrance to Squaw Valley Lodge, where one guard was relieving another. “What am I supposed to do?” asked the new guard. “Keep everybody out,” said the second.
Despite the commendable vigilance, practically everybody does get into the Lodge, one way or another, and sits out on the deck under the sun, drinking, trading gossip, exchanging amused remarks about everybody else’s clothes, and conjecturing on the goings on in the Olympic Village, which is off limits and reportedly the scene of Bacchanalian orgies unheard of this side of Wentworth, Nevada. I doubt it, personally. Skiing attire contains more zippers than a button manufacturer sees in his wildest nightmares, and who can ever find the right one?
For sheer, undisguised snobbism, it’s hard to beat the ski crowd discussing the “ins” and “outs” of other people’s costumes. The unofficial award for the most “out” attires of the day was split between a girl wearing sequin stretch pants — “unheard of ” — and another wearing a fur hat with long rabbit’s ears —“Really.”
A longer version of this column originally appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle on Feb. 23, 1960.