On my first time, I clipped my boots into my skis and glided gracefully and serenely down my first ski slope. My ski tracks were impeccably parallel, and created a perfect swerving design in the snow behind me. Tens of thousands of snow skiers know the exhilarating sound of ski edges gripping the side of an icy mountain slope. Fewer winter sports fans know the psychic satisfaction of hearing a snowshoe's soft crunch in the snow, but their numbers are growing. A cartoonist probably is working on a panel right now showing tandem skiers coming down a mountain.
Out front is the skier.
Behind him is his lawyer. After leaving his homeland of Spain when Gen. Francisco Franco's rightist forces won the Civil War in 1939, Pablo Casals, the world-famous cellist, dreamed of the day when democracy would be restored. Then he would return to the charming vacation house he had built decades before in his birthplace, the Catalonian town of El Vendrell. One reason to go skiing is an excuse to go shopping. You can ski in a sweatshirt and jeans, but, please. . . .