Family tradition, 37 years in a row, has all of us in McCall, open presents, eat homemade cinnamon rolls, fruit salad, and off to the ski hill. As we chased Holt up the Brundage road Hank asked how many horsepower did our car possess. That led to the following discussion.
Horsepower is one of those words that sounds far more impressive than it has any right to.be. It came from a time when power had hooves, opinions, and a tendency to stop working whenever it felt like it. James Watt needed a way to explain his steam engines to people who trusted horses more than machines, so he picked a number, called it one horsepower, and everyone agreed to stop asking questions. The horse was never consulted. Turns out at max output a horse can deliver 15 horsepower. Hank questioned if a pregnant horse could deliver 30 horsepower?
That same gap between expectation and reality showed up this Christmas in McCall. We packed for snow and got rain. Not the poetic kind, the kind that turns carefully built snow forts into soggy memorials to optimism. Winter showed up, checked the forecast, and decided to do its own thing.
Then the internet went out. Completely. No Friday message. No quiet corners filled with glowing screens and people pretending they were just checking one thing. Apparently, when Wi-Fi disappears, humans start talking again. Margie leaned into it and started interviewing family members, which was equal parts thoughtful and mildly intimidating. Those recordings will hopefully resurface in a future message, once everyone stops choosing their words so carefully.
And then there was Santa. Very real. Very unmistakable. Sitting in the Smokey/s bar at the Brundage ski area drinking a cold ale, looking exactly like a man who had finished a long shift and deserved it. If horsepower has a spirit animal, it might be that Santa — steady, unbothered, and not trying to impress anyone.
We are still here, watching the weather and hoping the story shifts. Brundage is the wildcard now. With any luck, snow starts falling tonight and tomorrow finally delivers what Christmas skipped. Power, it turns out, does not always arrive on schedule. Sometimes it waits out the rain, orders a beer, and shows up when it is ready.
Enjoy the Friday picture, the whole crew was warming up, Karen was busy cooking dinner, hopefully with a glass of wine to keep her warm. Hoping for a country where all of us are created and treated equally. Cheers. Mike