The vernacular of “action” sports can be a difficult-to-navigate maze of expressions and phrases. Some more difficult than others. Skateboarding lingo, for example,I can understand. “Dude, I tre-bombed a six-flat-six yesterday. It was sick” equals: “Friend, I performed a 360 flip down a stair set yesterday that consisted of six stairs, a flat area, and six more. It was great.” Even surfing I can sort of understand: “Bra, I got the glassiest stand-up barrel at Back Door yesterday” means: “Brother of mine, I was able to stand up beneath a breaking wave at a locale in the Hawaiian archipelago yesterday.” But snowboarding? Snowboarding is a different cat in an altogether different bag. Snowboarders use words like “huck” and “pow pow.” Sometimes it sounds like Vietnamese.

Yesterday was on the bus and had the opportunity to overhear a conversation between two snowboarders. I knew they were snowboarders because every so often I would hear the name of a local ski area and because they were wearing Burton coats with pin stripes that looked to be about six sizes too big. The following is a sample of their conversation:

“Hey man, pow pow huck huck.”

“Pow pow. Huck fuck fresh duck gnar gnar?”

“Nah, pow huck carcass huck blitzen fuck.”

“Blitzen huck?”

“Huck blitzen pow ride gnar fresh. Huck duck.”

“Huck duck fuck duck, Condoleeza Rice huck?”

“Huck fresh pow pow ride core? Carcass huck pow fresh duck suck?”

“Ohhhhhhh! Suck fuck pow fresh railjam core.”

“Gnar Fresh.”

“Huck suck where snowcat meow meow pow pow?”

“Sick huck fuck: Stevens, Crystal, Baker, Bachelor, Mount Snow huck fuck Vermont railjam strawberry jam leg of lamb mother duck.”

“Bachelor sick nick pick lick?”

“Pretty sick huck jam rail core.”

“What duck powder jam Cyrstal meth huck fuck?”

“Meth jam, Crystal huck, boarder jam, rail suck.”

“Rodeo five blooper huck?”

“Nah, corked nine bee hive river dive.”

“Huck fuck pow pow huck!”

“Pow pow huck railjam pickle suck.”

(End)

Did you understand? Maybe I’m just no “hip” anymore. Maybe my “steeze” are “wack.” Maybe my “railjam” needs a good “swivel.” Or maybe snowboarding is just fucking ridiculous.