Snow is on its way. It has arrived in the mountains, and I expect it will soon come to the lowlands … maybe not this week … maybe not this month … maybe not this year … but snow is coming. You can count on it.
Comedian Ross Bennet recalls the excitement and confusion that he felt as a child when snow started to fall. In the first video on this page, he tells how “snow days” could keep him home from school to face the perils of sledding. Then right in the middle of his story about sledding, Ross reveals a universal truth about learning to ski, and I realized that my path was not unique.
“The first time I went skiing …, I found the fundamental truth of human nature, which is that good skiers lie to new skiers,” Ross notes in the first video. “They say, ‘I will take you skiing.’ They never take you skiing; they leave you skiing. They take you to the top of mountains, mountains with names like ‘No One Has Made It Yet’ and ‘Widows Peak.’ They leave you while they ski down the mountain. They jump over moguls, moguls which I am convinced are new skiers that did not make it all the way down.”
That’s exactly what happened to me when I first learned to ski. I was living in Idaho in 1975 when I was “taken” to the slopes by a young woman who I thought was my friend. She was a near-expert skier, and I had never skied before. After a nice ride on a long ski lift, I found myself at the top of the tallest run at Grand Targhee Ski Resort, just over the state line in Wyoming.
I was soon alone. Where were the other skiers? I can remember the cold air being so quiet that I could hear the wind blowing the waist-deep powder snow. I couldn’t see my skies in all that powder, but I should have been grateful. The soft snow cushioned my tumbles down the steep hill. My “teacher” was waiting for me about halfway down the slope, where she offered a few tips on reducing the frequency of falling. For some strange reason, I kept going back, and I became a better skier — but not right away.
Ross Bennett has appeared on numerous television shows, including “The Late Show with David Letterman” and Comedy Central’s “Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn.” Ross must be a little younger than I, since he was going into West Point when I was graduating from Washington State University.
“I dropped out of West Point to become a comedian — probably the greatest service I will ever do for my country,” he quips.
As these videos reveal, Ross can tell a good story, and his facial expressions are a key part of his performance. He talks a lot about his family, including his father, who was a colonel in the Marine Corps. Read Ross’s bio on IMDb.
Ross now teaches comedy writing in New York and still performs at comedy venues around the country. For specific dates, check out his website, RossBennet, which contains a few videos of his performances. For more videos, go to “Ross Bennett” on YouTube.
