Weekend America

Change of Seasons

Can't Touch a Skiing Family

Suzie Lechtenberg

JANUARY 5, 2008

The Family That Skis Together

(Courtesy Jackie Mizer)

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Jackie Mizer: My name is Jackie Mizer and I live in Hailey, Idaho. I'm married to my husband, Jim, and we
have two kids. One is Marlow, she's now 12, and Mac, who is now eight. And this is a story about how my family spends time on winter weekends.

Marlow is a ski racer, an alpine ski racer. So at the age of nine we started traveling to different races. As a result, all of us ski on these weekends. My son Mac started to learn to ski very early. There were times when he would stop and look down and say, "I'm not doing this." And in order to help Mac build more confidence as we went on these different runs, we started to sing this song.

What we do is, we'd be at the top of the hill and we'd be exiting the ski lift, adjusting our boots, making sure our poles are secure. And somebody would start singing, "Da da da da, da da, da da."

And the next thing you know is Mac starting to say, "Doo doo doo doo, doo doo, doo doo. Can't touch this! Can't touch this! Oh!"

It was just a confidence builder. I'd look at him and say, "Can't touch this!" And somebody else would say, "Da da da da." And he would pick himself up and look down the hill and say, "I can do this." The little guy is a great skier now. He can go down anything.

Mac: Yeah, I'm awesome! I can ski almost anything. Usually, when I go off a jump and I land it and I'm not hurt and I'm not bleeding and not on the ground, usually I go, "Yay! Doo doo doo doo, doo doo. Can't touch this!"

Jackie: Because we're skiing with these other families, too, they would also have these small kids in tow. And we got some of them singing it. We've ended up passing people on runs where they start singing it.

Mac: It's just really funny. It gives me a good laugh.

Jackie: And now he's a snowboarder.

Mac: I fall down a lot. It looks like this ocean of white.

Jackie: And he's got much more attitude and he's still singing "Hammer Time." We still do it! "Da da da da."

Mac: "Doo doo, doo doo. Can't touch this! Doo doo doo doo, doo doo. Can't touch this! Oh!"

---

Letter from Listener Jackie Mizer

In winter, our weekend soundtrack is by MC Hammer: "Can't touch this!" During winter, we travel as part of the Hailey Ski Team for races. As a result, our four-year-old, Mac, learned to ski a variety of terrain early. For years, as we hit the top of a slope, often a slope which could look particularly steep to a 4 year old, one of us would start with "da.., da.., dada, da, da, da, da CAN'T TOUCH THIS!" It worked every time to get the little guy down the slope and the up and down motion we added helped him learn to bend his knees as he skied. Now, four years later, we're still racing and he's now snowboarding, all of us still singing to Hammertime.

Jackie Mizer
Hailey, Idaho

• Music Bridge:

  I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won''t Do That)

  Artist: Meat Loaf

  CD: Bat Out of Hell 2: Back Into Hell ((Geffen))

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