First Chair, Again

Opening day is not a celebration. It is a reopening of negotiations. The mountain has been closed for seven months and asks the same question it asks every year, before light, in the cold: are you sure.

The people in line at the gondola are sure. Some of them have been sure since they were children. Some of them rented the certainty last week at full retail. The mountain does not check receipts. It only checks whether you came back.

We came back. We always do. The record requires it.