Hold my beer as I head down hill

I can finally watch the Olympics in peace.

There was a time, however, when I saw the winter games as a challenge.

My first winter in Montana was 1976. I was living in Cooke City, didn’t have much money, and didn’t have any work.

But I did have a television set that picked up two channels, and one of them carried the Winter Olympics from Innsbruck, Austria. I also had a pair of skis and a mountain out my back door.

My friend Steve and I had built a short downhill course on the slope above the cabin and after watching Franz Klammer on the tube, we would head outside, climb the hill and race.

The...