A Bit of CNSC History #2

Year One of the CNSC 1984-1985

By the publication of the December '84 newsletter, the club had 100 members!  Can you guess what the membership fee was? Given the current $5 fee and the rate of inflation, the 1984 fee must have been around -$1.25 (that’s negative $1.25).  I doubt that the club actually paid people to join so obviously our fees have not kept up with inflation.  In reality our fees have not gone up at all in 33 years, membership was $5 for individual and $10 for family in 1984. Are you thinking what I am thinking? 

How did they manage to get all these members without Facebook?  It seems the method of publicity was mostly word of mouth, tho they also used the Grapevine (remember that?) and the Ithaca Times.

Jim Black, of (long closed) Black Star Bicycles, offered to have ski conditions for the local centers on his business phone (after hours only) if someone would collect the information for him.  Club outings would also be there.  Life before the internet was tough.

Weekly Tours 

were planned to the following places, I do not know how many actually went out:

Willowood

Black Star Touring Center at Greek Peak (!)

Danby State Forest

Podunk

Highland Forest (remember the old warming shack?  It was a lot cozier, tho bit rustic.)

Mt Pleasant

Connecticut Hill

Robinson Hollow (“connects up with the south end of Hammond Hill”)

Virgil Mountain public land, joint trip with the Adirondack Mt Club

Tug Hill “Last Snow Madness Tour” in late March.

Most trips met at Friendly’s at Cayuga Mall or Carvell on Rt 13 for carpooling. Leaders posted phone numbers.  Life before email was tough.

Coaching Clinics

These were to be held weekly, on Wed evenings at Willowood.  They were led by Gary James, who was also the coach for the Cornell team.  In case of no snow there would be off-snow training or a waxing clinic.  A training race followed the clinic. 

The First Ithaca Nordic Ski Festival took place Jan 26-27  “and was a resounding success”

Planned events included:

Sat 10am  10K Biathlon, with Crown City Biathlon Club, ESG* qualifier, at Dusenbury Sportsmen Club

Sat 2pm   15K Mass Start Citizens Race and ESG Masters qualifier, at Willowood

Sun 10am 5K Bill Koch League Race, at Willowood

Sun 11am 10K Womens ESG open qualifier, at Willowood

Sun 12 noon 15K Mens ESG open qualifier, at Willowood

Sun 2pm 15m Ski Jumping, at Podunk

*Empire State Games

Due to the poor snow conditions the venue had to be changed the Monday before the race from Willowood to the Mt. Pleasant Ski Area. The club offered “a big thanks to owner Mike Padula for his efforts and cooperation” 

(I believe this to be the same Michael A. Padula, police officer, who was killed in the line of duty in 1996 by an emotionally challenged woman).

All the race results were listed in the Jan 31, 1984 Newsletter, with no mention of the Biathlon or the Ski Jump so I am guessing those did not happen.  However, the Biathlon was run by another club so maybe the CNSC just didn’t have the results. Anyway, leaving those out, there were 100 registrants, 34 for the Citizens/Masters race (not all of them finished) and 66 for the Interval start /ESG events (Maybe this includes the Biathlon or perhaps many dnf or dns?)  There were also 42 names listed as helpers, most of them also raced.

Here are the results of the 15K Citizens/Masters ESG qualifier: (Masters being those old folks >30)

The Bill Koch League had only one entrant, Mike Padula, age 9, who did the 5K in 12:58.  And this must be the same Mike Padula, son of the slain police officer, who recently passed away (July 2017) from brain cancer. Pause here.

None of the scholastic entrants were from the area, so I will leave them out.  Here are the results of the open races. I actually entered the race, even tho I don’t remember it at all.  Or maybe very vaguely.  Can you find me?

 

 Look Tob beat MItch.

Spring Meeting

This was a dish to pass affair held on April 4 at the now demolished Women’s Community Building on Seneca St.  After reports, business, etc, a movie was shown, “Marathon Winter” about how Stuart Stevens managed to complete all 10 WorldLoppet marathons in one season (rumor has it he had a time-turner from Professor McGonagall, you can get one from Amazon).  The movie lasted about 50 minutes, which likely made the evening much longer, but in the past we often had audio-visual entertainment or speakers at the dinners.  

 I would like to have something this spring; if anyone has ideas or would like to talk about a trip they took please let me know, otherwise you will get whatever I come up with.

Stay tuned for more delightful antics by the early members of the club.