Molly Rose Burgess, left, and Natalie Leduc
(Photo provided)
In the Christmas of ’95, Santa brought 3-year-old me my first pair of boots and bindings. That winter I met Natalie Leduc at Pisgah, who taught me to “make pizza and French fries” with my skis down the Buttermilk trail. Every year after, Nat and I entered the Top of the Mountain Ski Race in the friend-friend combined racing category. And every year we came in last. And every year we had more fun than anyone else on the slopes. In the years after Nat hung up her skis, I joined the high school ski team and Nat never missed a Pisgah race, but I made sure to keep up our losing tradition! Afterward, teammates and I would walk over to Nat’s for hot chocolate. Nat would pull out dusty artifacts from her life to share with us, each with a wildly eccentric story behind it. Natalie passed on a few of these items to me, mostly pieces of Americana that held no real value without the priceless tales that came with them. I of