Jack was a professional quarterback, a congressman, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, a defender of minority rights, a vice presidential candidate and a bona fide 100% American.

However, I knew a different Jack Kemp because I knew him when he was out of the spotlight. These times were usually when I was trying to keep up with him roaring down some ski run or at a quiet dinner with him and his wife, Joanne, in our home.

I remember the first night that Laurie and I met Jack. It was at a New Years Eve party at the Saloon in Minturn, Colorado in about 1987. We had sat down next to him and Joanne and we were invited to ski with them the next day. We did and our friendship grew from there.

They began to leave their equipment in our basement between ski trips, and a few years later they bought a place in Vail, which became a hangout for the Kemp clan. Eventually, they bought another place right next door to their first one, so they could somehow accommodate all of their four kids, the kid's husbands and wives, and their 17 grandchildren during the Christmas holidays.

Some of the things I remember most about Jack are the many great discussions we had on chairlifts and while having lunch at a place called The Dog House in Vail. It was a non-corporate hotdog stand off of the beaten path. We would sit in the sun and talk and listen to our wives compare their ideas on how they could help make the world a better place. It was great.

Jack and I also liked The Dog House because you could get a great bratwurst sandwich, fries, and a bottle of soda-pop for less than four dollars. The corporate-owned restaurants on the mountain charged a couple of extra dollars for the same lunch.

Jack had a lot of good one-liner’s that summed up his philosophy on life. One was: “Winning is like shaving. If you don’t do it every day, you look like a bum.” Another, “Pro-football gave me a good perspective when I entered the political arena. I had already been booed, cheered, cut, sold (to the Buffalo Bills for $100), and hung in effigy.” But the one-liner that makes more sense to me with each passing day was: “Democracy without morality is impossible.”

In 1996 Jack invited Laurie and me to dinner at a Chinese restaurant, his treat. At Hop Chings' Chinese Coffee House that night, he introduced us to Tim Blixseth; Tim was just starting the Yellowstone Club in Montana. (Yes, it's the ski resort that is currently involved in a four-hundred-million dollar bankruptcy, and no, it's absolutely no fault of Jack's or mine!) Two weeks later, all of us stood at the top of Pioneer Peak in Big Sky Country. Two weeks after that, we once again stood at the top, and this time we watched as Jack's wife become the first grandmother to ever ski off of the top of that mountain.

Did Jack change my life? Of course he did. He also really solidified a lot of what I had been thinking most of my life in relation to politics.

Probably the longest stretch of creative discussion we ever had was when I made the statement that I thought, "In the 1940s, 50s and 60s the gene pool of today's potential world leaders was killed off in World War II, The Korean War, and in Vietnam. America lost more men on the first day of the invasion of Iwo Jima than we have lost in Iraq to date." I could not prove my theory, and he could not disprove it. Unfortunately, we have now lost another world leader in Jack Kemp.

There will be a lot of books written about Jack and they will all be hundreds of pages long, but I have a library full of memories of being with him, skiing together day after day, and sometime beating him to the bottom of the mountain where my wife would be waiting for both of us.

Jack, we all miss you a lot already, and please save some of the powder snow for us.


Editor's Note: This is one in a Tahoetopia series written by Warren Miller, legendary ski cinematographer. For other columns by Warren, click on Warren Miller. Also watch Tahoe TV╒s Get Out! Tahoe on cable. Here are the Channel numbers: North Lake Tahoe: 14; Truckee/W Shore: 66; South Lake Tahoe: 15; Reno: 3; Carson: 18.

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