The recent blizzard here on the Island took me back in time, to my life as a child growing up in Garrison, N.Y. before sailing brought me to the Vineyard.

I was a budding skier in those days and our neighborhood slope had been created by hand. We called it Gus’s mountain and it was a fairly steep descent of several hundred feet that Gus and his friends had cleared of trees and rocks. We could keep ourselves entertained for hours on Gus’s backyard slope, schlepping our Northland skis and bamboo poles to the top, locking into our bear trap bindings, then racing down.

After the first season, our adult community of alpine enthusiasts decided it was time to build a rope tow. To no one’s surprise, the three eldest Gilbert brothers rose to the challenge. They possessed a primal instinct for engineering using baling twine and sledgehammers for tools. To power the tow, they bought a beat-up ’52 Buick Roadmaster for $10 from Jimmy Bosco, the junk dealer.

That summer, after a tune–up, grease job and topping off the gas, they drove the Buick to the top of the ski slope and blocked it off among some maples.

The Buick was a sorry old woody with dented fenders, shattered windshield, teeth broken off the grill, one headlight missing, a cockeyed front bumper and bits of birch paneling hanging like broken bones. Gus said it looked like Floyd Patterson after a few rounds with Sonny Liston.

With the car settled in its new surroundings, the Gilbert brothers welded an extra big rim to the rear drive wheel. Working in his cellar, Guy Cockburn, the local tree warden, and his helper, Lou Kingsley, volunteered to long splice lengths of manila line to make up the six hundred-foot rope tow into an endless loop.

At the top of the hill, the rope was passed over a junkyard wheel rim bolted to a tree about eight feet off the ground, then led around the Buick drive wheel and back down the slope. At the bottom, it was tensioned with a front-end axle that pivoted on a post, one end weighted with cement blocks hung from a line, then through a turning block lashed to a stump.

With the Fireball V8 engine growling at 1500 RPM in low gear, the rope traveled at a sedate pace, easy for a skier to grab hold of and get a ride up the hill. It was a marvel of resourcefulness and chance, and worked surprisingly well — most of the time.

One fine, bright winter day soon after my ninth birthday, I was riding up the tow, my right hand gripping the rope behind my back, my left hand holding on in front, skis sliding in the well-established tracks. A dozen or so skiers, ranging from toddlers to old timers, practiced the snowplow, zipped down parallel or attempted a technique somewhere between.

I called out to Pop as he cautiously glided by, but he was focused on a stem-christie turn and didn’t notice. My mother was on the far side of the hill chatting with Gloria and looking quite fashionable in her new Oleg Cassini red stretch pants.

The snow was deep and groomed — perfect conditions.

As I approached the summit, the old Buick came into view, chugging resolutely, a plume of exhaust stirring the still air. Had I been paying attention during my journey up the hill, I might have noticed the twisting towrope wrapping itself around my baggy ski parka, binding it in a knot at my midriff. When I let go of the rope and angled my skis toward the slope, I was yanked back and pulled over.

Helpless as a hooked fish, I dropped my poles and tried to free myself while being dragged through the snow. Then I was lifted off the ground, destined for the wheel rim attached to the tree. I called out to Mr. Townsend, who was on duty as safety officer, but he was slumped over in the driver’s seat, eyes closed, and, as we all knew, deaf as a doorknob.

Dangling several feet in the air, skis crisscrossing and 10 yards before certain disaster, I decided to let go and hung in mid-air by the knot. Then I started to spin, untwisting like a swing in a playground. Finally, in spitting distance of the machinery, I unwound from the grip of the rope and fell onto the soft snow. I stood up, brushed myself off and retrieved my poles.

My brother John, sliding off the tow a few minutes later, glanced at me as I was straightening the creases in my new Christmas parka.

“What are you doing, Nat? You’re ruining that jacket,” he said.

Then he turned and skied away.

Nat Benjamin is co-owner of The Gannon & Benjamin Marine Railway. He lives in Vineyard Haven.