He's hoping it's all downhill from here
"Whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul . . . " Ishmael says in the opening of "Moby Dick", describing more or less not just conditions this month, but the weather just about every November in New England. The passage also can be used to make a sharp point about starting the ski season too early. In November, Ishmael goes to sea. This year that would have been a better option than the mountains.
Snowmaking around here has pushed the season ahead some, but we need a little luck regarding the climate to really consider November skiing a prime recreation offering -- at least in the Northeast.
And the difference between Stowe and Breckenridge -- where people have been snow-sliding for weeks -- is about a mile of atmosphere.
Years ago in Orono, Maine, where my college roommate Sandy Crouchley got me into skiing, we would not even bring our ski stuff back to campus until returning from Christmas vacation. And if skiing isn't on the menu in that part of deep Maine, it probably isn't happening anywhere.
Not that I mind the battle of press releases that goes on this season -- hey, it looks good to have your lifts running first -- but it seems an awful lot of expense and psychic energy gets wasted to market snowsports in the thinnest of seasons. Skiers and riders would do better to stay interested through March and into April, when the cover is still usually deep and the climate most genial.
Oh well, we'll be skiing soon enough, and I have my usual list of preseason resolutions composed and ready to ignore -- like rule No. 1 about really getting in shape for the season this year. Already blown that one.
Some of the others:
This year, I really want to take these aging football knees back into some mogul fields. Not big bumps, or icy bumps, or close-together bumps. But just some of those nice soft rolls that get you skiing with rhythm as you gain some mastery. Years ago on much longer skis, everyone did bumps for fun, and I'm not sure just when I got lazy and stopped seeking them out.
Related in spirit is my resolve this season to get at least one day of snowboarding in. I've been threatening it for years, and I'm ready to take up a standing offer from Jake Burton to give me a lesson. The only condition is that we do it on a hill far, far away, with no witnesses. One way or another, you'll be reading about it here.
I resolve to watch more college ski racing. You know how it is at a college winter carnival, you see competition going on from the lift, but then go off skiing on your own. When you think about it, watching New England college kids race is like watching college hockey in and around Boston. It's the top of the game this side of the World Cup. Or, to make another comparison, college ski racing around here is like Cape Cod League baseball. The national championships will be at Attitash March 7-11. And on the nordic side, you can catch the national championships at Jackson Cross-Country center in Jackson, N.H., in the same time slot. Thom Perkins would love some spectators, and the show is bound to be good.
This is the season I will not do the typical grandparent thing and push Ian, who will be 3 in April, into skiing too soon. Not that I'm clueless about this, but chatting with Billy Kidd at the Boston Expo over the weekend, I gained some insights. Kidd, the Olympic medalist of my generation, originally from Stowe, Vt., has been director of skiing at Steamboat Ski Resort for many years.
"A lot of adults push small kids too fast and tell them, 'You'll thank me for this someday,' " Kidd said. "But it doesn't work like that. Kids get cold. They get uncomfortable. Let them have fun.
"One tip is to get some of those toy-store plastic skis with skids on the bottom and let 3-year-olds get the feel stomping around the snow in the backyard. Then, hook them up to a rope on a broom handle and pull them around to get the feeling of sliding in snow."
It sounds good. I can't wait. But I guess the hardest rule of grandparenting is to remind ourselves occasionally that we are not the parents.
This is the year I will finally, totally, and completely accept the short-ski revolution. Things have been going better lately as I have come down from my 213 Atomics in the straight-ski era, to 177s. I think those of us who never believed that shorter -- really short -- was OK, suffered from that old complex about size equaling talent and prowess. I remember seeing a guy in the Jay Peak tram resting his skis on his ski boots so they wouldn't look so short. And you still see those hippie vans around Man River with bumper stickers ripping short skis, so the whole big-stick ethos dies hard.
I will not buy a $5 baked potato this season, even if it does have chili and cheese on it.
This is the year I finally will call off the quest for a streak. Every season I vow to -- at some perfect time and place -- hit a speed equal my age. That was a piece of cake through my 30s and 40s, more of a struggle in my 50s, and, well, let's just say wisdom finally has prevailed.
Think snow!
Tony Chamberlain can be reached at chamberlain@globe.com. 
