Jerry Demartin
After graduation Tim Nagy and I went to Northern Michigan University as roommates. The choice of schools was easy. Tim was a beautiful skier and Marquette, Michigan (the home of NMU) had an annual snowfall of 140 inches.
We both bought season passes to Marquette Mountain and rented lockers for our skies. At every opportunity we rode the shuttle from campus and traversed the beautifully groomed, pine-scented slopes. I loved watching Tim ski. There was something extraordinary about the way he moved through the deep powder, swishing this way and that without the least sign of effort. It was like watching an otter at play in the waves.
Of course, I had none of his elegance. When we met on a run he would laugh aloud and call me “Schuss Boomer !” That’s a skier that has utterly lost control and is careening recklessly down the hillside. I wasn’t quite that bad. But skiing alongside Tim did make it seem so.
I took this photo in the winter of 1967-68. We were 18 years old, young and free and barely able to contain our youthful energy. We had so much fun together.
Rest in peace, brother. You lived a wonderful life. And I will miss you.
