“Maggie- did she say nude kayaking?” With that, I thought Maggie Ostrowski was going to fall laughing on the floor. Maggie was one of our best blind skiers back in the day, a Para-Olympic medalist from the Atlanta Games, kayaker, rower, and all- around great athlete. We just heard Nancy Leverett, the President of BOLD, telling the crowd at the 50th anniversary party at Boyce Park, that we had a lot of “new” events. Aside from the “nude” comments, there were a lot of laughs at this event held last Saturday. BOLD athletes and guides are such fun people with really great senses of humor. BOLD stands for Blind Outdoor Leisure Development which was established back in the 70s by a French ski instructor in Aspen- Jean Eymere. His mission was to develop skiing for visually impaired folks not only in Aspen, but nationwide and Pittsburgh had one of the first chapters – established in 1975. 50 years later, BOLD has had a lot of fun with visually impaired athletes and guides taking part in activities such as alpine skiing, cross country skiing, water skiing, tandem bicycling, camping, hiking, ice skating and lately kayaking and tennis. You have to have a good sense of humor to try these sports with vision issues. Also, the guides have to be patient and have a good sense of humor too. I ran the ski program for 34 years and always told my skiers to ” watch where you are going, will ya?” I always got a laugh out of that one.

Today the BOLD ski program is run by Scott Gray and his lovely wife Leslie. They both do a great job and took over for me a number of years ago as I retired from BOLD after 34 years of running the ski program. I could write a book about BOLD. Some of the fun times we had, like when I let Fred Siget, our best blind skier, drive my International Scout in the upper parking lot at Seven Springs. It was snow covered and I let him do donuts at night. The first time I guided him was at Snowshoe and the only tree on the slope was like a magnet. It sucked him right in due to my guiding and we laughed as he crashed right in front of the tree. I told him it was the only tree for hundreds of yards.

We had another guy, John Good, who used to ski with a flask of booze, cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and didn’t know his right from his left. I would tell him right turn and he would go left. I laughed and said ” the other right, John.” We would laugh and narrowly escape disaster. Or John’s good friend J.R who could see partially on cloudy days and not at all on sunny days. He always wanted to race John and people were afraid to guide him because he skied so fast and often out of control. I think I was the only one who could really keep him in check.

How about at the National Blind Skiing Championships? The hardest week of my life with 13 visually impaired skiers under my watch due to a bad snowstorm and wicked cold conditions. Minus 40 straight temps on a lot of days – not windchill- straight temperature. 40 below. I taught skiing in Maine but never had cold like that in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

I went on a blind skiers camping weekend one time and one of my visually impaired pals, who will remain nameless, drank most of the beer I had in my backpack and began putting the moves on a girl in the lean to right next to me. I told him he was blind drunk. We both laughed.

Maggie Ostrowski and Nancy Leverett are both wonderful skiers, even though Mag is now retired from skiing. Lots of fun with those two flying down North Face at Seven Springs much to the amazement of the folks riding up the North Face lift. Both ladies regularly skied out west and had the skills to ski blues and blacks. I am told that their guides out west were always amazed at their skill levels and when they told them that they learned to ski in Western Pa, they were truly astonished.

We used to use radios to transmit and receive voice commands. The guide had the transmitter and the skier had the earpiece. One time, I used the devices to guide Fred right up to Herman Dupre- the owner of Seven Springs, and tell him what a nice, red, flannel shirt he had on. Herman looked kind of sideways at Fred and told me later, after the gag, that “after all the years of giving Fred a free season pass, he tells me what a nice red shirt I have on.” ” I have to tell you Pat, I was getting a little hot under the collar.” We all laughed at that one. I used the transmitter one time and let Fred ski Stowe slope at Seven Springs all by himself. I guided him all the way to the bottom with me standing up at the top. People came up to me later and said, ” Pat………we saw Fred skiing by himself. Doesn’t he need a guide?” I let them in on that gag too. Fred was a good sport.

Over the 34 years of running the ski program, I have enjoyed the company of so many great guides who selflessly donated their time not only to guide the skiers, but to drive them to and from the slopes. The skiers themselves have been amazing. Computer programmers, accountants, attorneys, all kinds of professional occupations and doing it while visually impaired. Incredible.

So, when the opportunity came up to attend the 50th anniversary of BOLD, I jumped at the chance. I got to see a lot of old friends, met new people who are involved in the “new” sports for BOLD, and in short, participated in a great event. As the folks came in from a hike at Boyce Park, they had smiles on their faces and as always with BOLD events, lots of stories to tell. I cherish my years with BOLD and hope that it can continue for another 50 years. I told everyone at the event that BOLD did a lot more for me, than I did for it. And that is the truth. Please consider donating to their cause. Western Pa. BOLD PO Box 9101 Pgh, Pa. 15224. Thanks for reading.

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