Ski buddy.(Remembering WFB)(William F. Buckley, Jr.)(In memoriam)

THE winters seemed longer then, the slopes much whiter and the weather sunnier. This was Gstaad around 1960, and I had run into the Buckleys during a Palace Bar altercation with Alistair Horne over a fascist song about youth. Pat thought it hilarious to invite me to dinner at their famous chateau. Bill, too, was having a whale of a laugh when Alistair warned him about the dangerous fascist he had just let into his house. Needless to say the three of us went skiing the next morning and that was that.

The great event back then was the Buckley Family Race Day, held in the Hornberg's sunny and not-too-difficult slopes over the course of a day. Bill's ski guide--the very young Anita, now a grandmother--would pick a slope and put up some poles, we'd ski through them while she timed us, and so on. At the end we'd all retire to the chateau and Bill would read out the results. Every Buckley had to race, and that included a non-Buckley Greek. (Who won it every year to great boos by a teenage Christo, who also shed tears over the beauty that was my first wife.)

Bill was a strong skier, braver than he was good, but deep snow puzzled him as much as liberalism. He would name a "Fuhrer"--usually Van Galbraith or myself--and ...