Brad Trafford

By Abigail Trafford

The education of a Hochie daughter would begin the day before as a thickening gray would darken the sky with the promise of snow and as a little girl’s heart raced—because if it snowed and tomorrow were Saturday, the whole day would be spend skiing with Daddy. Something wild and wonderful was about to happen.

Or, maybe it was something wild and wonderful about my father. He was a “total skier”—a Stem-Like-Hell racer and a member of the Tenth Mountain Division. And, of the few stories he would tell about the war when he was a lieutenant in the “Fighting Ninth” infantry division on the long march across Europe, was one he liked to recall of the time he went behind enemy lines and accomplished a critical mission on skis.

All through his life he skied—in the best of times and in the worst. He skied in the years of his youth in Germany and at Harvard; he skied during the long stretch of mid-life when he was a lawyer in Boston and raising a family on the North Shore, and he skied in the hours before his death, when he had a massive heart attach while skiing on the Esplanade in Boston after a February blizzard had covered the ground in white.

Down and up and up and down, my father saw hope and opportunity in every snowfall. He knew the skier’s code and generously passed it on. To him, skiing was a physical philosophy. It was not just a sport—because for most people, the sport of skiing involved proper equipment, a designated place (preferably a resort with ski lifts and a lodge with a huge fireplace), and other skiers whose poles matched and whose jackets had working sippers. These were conventional details that did not interest my father.

Skiing was about transcending details of convention. Skiing was freedom—schussing down hills, jumping over stone walls, and skating over fields. Skiing was flight—pushing out the edge of the envelope over the Headwall and crashing down Suicide Six. It was noble battle—with moguls, trees, fences. It was adventure. We’d be deep in the woods with the sun going down, my mittens soaked through and my boots, too, one pole broken. “Daddy, I think we’re lost.” He’d turn around and smile, “Of course, we’re lost! Or what’s the fun of finding a new way out?” If we didn’t get lost, it would mean we hadn’t gone anywhere.

Skiing was metaphor: a perfect run down, the hard climb up, down again, up again, down, up, up, down—falling, tripping, tumbling, speeding, risking, racing, winning, losing, getting hurt, getting stuck, getting up, schussing, slaloming, doing it and loving it, and doing it again.

I had a lot to learn. We’d get up Saturday morning, assemble our skis, adjust boots and bindings, find some poles in the garage, pile on socks and sweaters, and set out across the road to the Reynolds’ farm, and then beyond to the rolling Wenham Golf course. To a seven-year-old, the gentle hills of the North Shore were like the Alps, and irrigation ditches, rivers. We’d tackle the first field with bindings loose for lang laufen, the cross-country “long run.” He’d teach me the German words. To be a Hochie daughter, you had to ski in German.

We’d get to the top of a hill in an apple orchard. To make our way down, “Tal schulter herunter,” he’d yell. The “valley shoulder down,” I’d careen down the slope, knees not bent enough, ass too high, tal shulter hurunter—hah!—chasing a distant figure, the puer eternis Hochie slaloming through the trees. Then, there was the Telemark down a clear field of untouched glistening snow—an impossible deep-knee strut like a puffed-up turkey. But what a sense of wobbly mastery for a little girl! Schussing was the best—a deserved burst of fun after a hard climb up, the thrill of the zoom, parental permission to let loose and go as fast as you can can . . . except for the stonewall at the bottom of the hill.

There were rules. Number One: Make fresh tracks in powder snow. Only sissies with no imagination would ski on packed snow and get lifts up a hill. “Real skiers made their own tracks,” he’d say. Real skiers take the road less traveled by. Real skiers leave the crowd behind. What—go to that place with a rope tow? Stand in line and do cute Christies? Too easy! Too slow! “Not possible this Saturday. Your mother’s not well. We can’t leave her. We’ll made the best of it. This is the best of it.” Where’s the real challenge for a Hochie daughter? Go out in the world and make your own tracks.

Number Two: Never say I can’t. Another climb up another hill when the wind has picked up and it’s starting to sleet, and my binding keeps popping out, and my hat won’t stay on, and my mittens are soaked, and my jacket won’t sip up, and my legs are shaking, and my toes are frozen. My father would turn around and say, “Just one more hill. It’s on our way home.” He’d smile and slow down, no hat on his head, blotches of while sticking to his black sweater. “You did well,” he’d say. “You can make it.” The pin-pricks of falling snow stop, and the wind drops. It’s quiet and easy going. The two of us make our way like Good King Wencelas and his page across the last field that leads home. A day of triumph.

Number Three: Sing loud. A curious thing would happen to my father when he’d get into the zone, whether he was racing a dinghy in Maine or schussing Suicide Six. He’d start to hum. Then he would sing louder and louder. No particular words or songs, just his own music, flowing notes and crescendos to go with the “whoosh, whoosh” of the skis, the “plink, plink” of the poles, the crisp air, and the “crunch” of the snow. He became lost in the action of skiing, the sound of his music, the exuberance of his soul. “Anything worth doing has its own glory,” he’s say. “It’s not about winning—it’s about rejoicing.” The harder the turn, the louder the music. The faster the schuss, the greater the crescendo.

Johnny Lawrence, life-long friend of my parents, remembers the early days of skiing in the United States, when he and my father were college boys in the Depression and took to the mountains of New England to ski in German. He tells the story of a group of them, climbing up Mt. Washington to ski over the Headwall. One by one, they leap over, but when it’s my father’s turn, something has happened to him. He comes over the Headwall on one ski. One ski! And he is smiling, singing, soaring—unbowed by a detail as he shares the glory of the moment with his friends.

One winter a while ago, my daughter and I are in Maine. A blizzard has covered the island in snow. We put on our cross-country skis and set out under a blue ski and hot sun and into the glistening quiet of freshly fallen snow. As we take off over the field, I turn to her and yell, “Make fresh tracks in powder snow!” After all, she’s a Hochie granddaughter.

submitted by Bonnie Van Slyke

William Bradford Trafford Bio:

William Bradford Trafford, was born on March 22, 1910 in New York City, died February 20, 1983 in Boston. Graduate, St. Paul's School, 1927; student, University Freiburg, Germany, 1927-1928; AB, Harvard University, 1932; Bachelor of Laws, Harvard University, 1936. American Lawyer. Bar: Massachusetts 1936, New York 1937. Decorated Bronze Star, Purple Heart. Board of directors Massachusetts Society Prevention of Cruelty to Children. First lieutenant infantry, Army of the United States, 1942-1945, European Theatre of Operations. Law clerk to judge The United States of America Court Appeals, 1937-1939. Assistant Corporate Counsel New York City, 1939-1942. Member Peabody, Brown, Rowley & Storey, Boston, 1946-1985. Member American Law Institute, Boston Bar Association, Massachusetts History Society, City Club, Ski Club Hochgebirge 1933, Tavern Club.