When ski racers come to the Middlebury Snow Bowl, they all have to take a playing card from the deck of a queer old lady who rules the mountain. No one is conscious of having taken the card. Sometimes if you look hard you can see aces and deuces fall out of the racers boots when they take them off in the gym where everybody sleeps at the end of the day's skiing. The racers never see the card fall out--they are always in a hurry to get to dinners and the fabulous parties at Sigma Etc. that night, and the cards are always swept away by the same janitor--no one knows his name. They say his only amusement is to play gin with the queer old lady late at night.

There are a couple of things to remember about the old lady's whims. One, she enjoys surprising people more than anything else in this world or the next. She is a great educator: the cards she deals out have led ski racers into fixes they never could have imagined had they not experienced them. Second, her forte is comedy, but no one should underestimate her ability to play any role. At the NCAAs last year she donned a tragic mask on an icy gray morning during practice for the downhill. Mickey Cochran, special coach of the Vermont team, could only say this of the death of the boy from Nevada: "It was a freak thing. Ten thousand racers have gone past that spot in the woods and nothing ever happened. You can't explain a thing like that. He was a fine racer."

In the 1974 edition of the Middlebury carnival, the old lady was back to doing what she does best--comedy--and she let a little quality through as well.

Three of the hottest just-off-the-hot-junior-circuit freshmen swept the giant slalom on Friday. John Macomber of Dartmouth won the race, helping his team to an overall Carnival win. Two Middlebury freshmen swept second and third, just a tick of the timer ahead of Harvard alpine captain Ben Steele. The old lady was at least as respected as fate, so course setter Howard Kelton bypassed the dropoff which led to the NCAA accident last year, but there was no ice to worry the racers this time anyway. The old lady teased everyone with a fabulous 8-inch snowfall of white powder two days before the Carnival, then come race day she decided to wash it all down with a downpour and the racers mucked through a surface that most resembled a colorless Slurpee.

Harvard sophomore Gordon Adler had really been ready for 1974. As a fresh-man, this feisty competitor battled his way onto the Carnival teams, and now he was in the second seed. For Friday's race he drew starting spot 14 out of 70 plus competitors. Amidst the downpour, Adler with his rimless spectacles looked like a scholarly water rat, as the took the lift up the mountain to get ready for his start.

When he got to the starting gate, one of the officials looked at Gordon's skis and said, "Wait a minute." Adler had no safety strap. Last year that wouldn't have mattered, but the rules had been changed this year. Gordon told the officials that someone had told him it was OK down at the base lodge. No soap, said the starters. An altruist from New England College said, "Here, take mine." and Gordon started madly attaching the straps to his bindings. Just as he got to the gate, the starters said, "Number 15, in the gate." Gordon said wait just a second, he was ready to go. No soap. Number 14 missed his start and was disqualified.

Williams coach Chuck Hewett was driving his team home one night in the school's Econoline van. He was munching on some chocolate chip cookies. The sun was bright and the windshield was streaked with dirt, so he flipped down the sun visor. The window scraper fell out, so he tried to catch it, and knocked the cookies off the dashboard in the process. While trying to grab the cookies, he pushed his hat over his eyes. Crunch. The van stopped abruptly at a tree off the side of the road. No one was hurt but the engine was nailed. Bent out of shape. Totaled.

At the banquet, the Harvard team presented Hewett with a new bag of chocolate cookies and the "You can have your cookies and eat it, too" award.

Three coaches, including Vermont's Chop LaCasse, were not allowed into the banquet because they did not have tickets. It seems last year a number of rowdies snuck in for some free roast beef. This year every member of the Harvard team had tickets. Plead as they might, the three coaches could not get in. Disgusted with his third place finish, LaCasse took the other coaches out for a night on the town. They had three Harvey Wallbangers each at Mr. Up's in Middlebury, then repaired to LaCasse's favorite bar in Burlington. After that, the finished up a few more at the Alibi in Middlebury. When all the racers returned to the gym they found LaCasse and his two compatriots sitting in the middle of all the sleeping bags and boots and pillows and way, babbling something fervently to themselves. "It was strange, but nobody could quite comprehend it," said Harvard coach Carter.

Maybe they visited the old lady, too.