I slept with Ross Rebagliati
Dear reader, the headline says it all. I, Glen Callender UFA, slept with controversial Olympic gold-medallist Ross Rebagliati!
It happened the weekend of February 23, 1986. He was 14 years old. I was 12. He was billeted with my family at our ski condo on Mt. Washington, Vancouver Island. I was on the top bunk. He was on the floor. And verily, we slept.
I must confess, I don’t recall the slightest thing about that brief, shining weekend in which our lives crossed, those two nights when we lay together in the dark, breathing the same stale bedroom air. In fact, if not for my mother I’d have forgotten that Ross and I had ever met.
Ah yes, my mother. She remembers. She remembers it all with crystal clarity. She remembers what he looked like, what he wore, what runs he skied, what he thought of the weather, everything!
And it is precisely these memories that my mother is now striving to inflict upon the rest of the world. The moment Ross took the podium in Nagano, she made it her life’s mission to reminisce about his visit to all who cross her path—and if you are unlucky enough to blunder onto our couch, your only option is to smile politely, make interested noises, and wait for the monologue to end.
Her Rebagliati routine isn’t just spoken word, either. No, she makes it a full multi-media experience. For just when you think it’s over, wham! She hits you with our tattered old guest book, which bears his signature, and a deeply lyrical inscription: “Great skiing... Thanks a lot!!”
She has fastened a newspaper photo of Ross over his signature, and just in case his signature and photo in our guest book aren’t evidence enough that he was our guest, she has written “Ross slept here!!” in red under his signature.
He’s the only celebrity guest the Callender family has ever had, and Mum is working it to the hilt.
Thankfully I live several hours from my parents, so it was easy to tolerate my mother’s idolatry for the first nine months or so. But my patience finally came to an end in late 1998, when I spent the Christmas holidays at the condo with my family. For alas, this was the week that Mum unveiled a terrifying new phase in her “we were touched by Ross Rebagliati” campaign.
Imagine my horror when I emerged from the room in which Ross Rebagliati slept, and discovered my mother hanging a large, framed poster of Ross on the wall. And beneath the picture, a triumphant caption: “Ross slept here! Feb ’86.” She had strategically placed this monstrosity on the landing of the staircase, where it would be impossible to avoid.
I gaped, mortified. The writing was on the wall. From now on, this was Ross’ condo. We were just living in it.
The holidays just weren’t the same after that. Every time I saw the poster, I felt a razor-sharp icicle stab me in the heart. For me, it was so much more than a poster of Ross Rebagliati—it was a stark reminder of the essential evil that lurks in the human soul. We are little more than vultures, you see. Carrion-eaters, drawn by the rotting stench of fame. Now that poor Ross was gold, everyone wanted a piece of him. Even my own dear, sweet mother.
It didn’t take long for the inevitable to occur. One afternoon I saw that poster one too many times, and I snapped. I marched downstairs and accosted my mother, who was cheerfully immersed in one of her weird, obsessive-compulsive solitaire fits.
“Mother!” I shouted. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing with this ‘Ross Rebagliati slept here’ insanity? Do you have any idea what the consequences would be if everyone who encountered Ross Rebagliati in such a trivial manner turned around and put up signs about it? I mean, what’s the freakin’ point? That poster is an embarrassment that stains the entire Callender family! Where’s your pride, for God’s sake? For the love of me, mother, please take down that poster! IT’S NOT LIKE ANYBODY BUT YOU CARES!”
She didn’t say a word. She just sighed and gave me a look of deep sadness, as if to say, “Glen, I’ve worked long and hard in my life. I’m retired, I’m overweight and I have a bad knee. Can’t you let me have my fun?”
Her despondency crashed down upon me like a ton of broken snowboards. I had ruined her afternoon, and over what? A stupid Ross Rebagliati poster. Oh God, what had I let myself become? I slunk off into the shadows and thought dark thoughts of self-loathing until dinner, which was quite tasty.
So the moral of the story is this: Let your mother have her fun. She probably deserves it. •
Originally published in The Peak, January 11 1999 .
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