Marvin Pincus understands that times change, and he’s changed a lot, too. He’s a lot older now, of course, and it gives him more time to consider things, like snowboarding. There he was, the other day up on Parker’s Ridge, our fairly-close-to-being-local ski slope, resting his arms on the antique wooden ski poles he’s used since the Hoover Administration.

And down the hill came young people, swooping and swooshing on snowboards and it got ol’ Marvin shaking his head.

“Back when I was young,” he said, “we had to work at this. You had to have skiing lessons, of course. Then you had to buy the right equipment and the right wax. Oh yes, the wax. You had to know just what kind of wax to use for the current temperature and what kind of snow you had. Then you practiced learning to stop and turn. For some strange reason, we thought it was important to be able to turn on skis, and to stop.

“But now we have these snowboards. Near as I can tell, all you need to get started in that sport is an idiot and a six pack.”

Brought to you by Ol’ Jimmy Dollar, Slim’s children’s book about a happy hounddog man and his “kids.” See it at riograndebooks.com.