Black Like Me

I recently read a book called Black Like Me. It was written by John Howard Griffin in the 1960's. It is based on a true story about racism in the deep south. Rather than just writing his point of view as a white man, he actually got his skin dyed black so he could get the full experience.

I won't tell you about the rest of the book because I don't want to give it away. My point of view is that there is racism amongst both blacks and whites. However back in the 60's whites were so judgmental it was ridiculous. They decided to hate people based on the color of their skin. Some of the issues they discussed in the book are still around today. Overall I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to discover more about those issues and that time period.

Powder Flu

It was early Thursday morning when my uncle and I got ready to go to Mt. Baker. I was so excited since it was going to be my first time snowboarding since last year. We ate breakfast, packed a lunch, and got our boards ready. When we loaded everything onto the car, we were off. We traveled North on Highway 9 en route to Baker. My uncle had to call in sick to work. He called his sickness, powder flu.

The roads were clear up until the last mile or so before the lodge. It was surprisingly busy for a Thursday morning. We got our boards and got in line to buy a lift ticket. Finally the time had come for the first run of the day.

We strapped our front binding and got on the lift. It was beautiful out as we got higher in the air I felt a slight breeze on my face. This was perfect weather for snowboarding. When we got to the top I was ready to do the bunny hill, but I was sorely mistaken. Instead we took a run down to chair 8 and went up even higher. Yikes!!! It turned out to be all right since all the snow was powder. It didn’t even hurt to crash. It was like gliding on a cloud.

Then the time came and we did the natural half pipe, which was cool because it was like a chute down the side of the mountain with jumps on it. Even though it was bumpier than the man made half pipe it was a lot more fun.

We headed back to the car for lunch. Mmmm, peanut butter and jelly. After lunch we decided to split up. My uncle went to chair 8 and I went to chair 7. I did five runs on chair 7 and on the fifth run when I was dropping into the pipe my heel side of the board caught on a rut and I flew down into the pipe and landed hard on my tailbone. I could barely make it down the rest of the way. I knew after I took that shot my day was over. So my uncle and I met up and headed home, after a great day of snowboarding.