Tim Engstrom, Pothole Prairie

Aah, late autumn! When a young man&8217;s fancy turns to &8230; downhill skiing.

Warren Miller is this filmmaker who with his crew captures the world&8217;s best skiers and snowboarders on film. He has been making great ski films since he was a young man in the late 1940s. Each year he comes out with a new movie, to the delight of ski buffs who are eagerly awaiting snow.

Actually, last year and this year he hasn&8217;t had as prominent of a role in his films. Other people direct the movies and his narration from previous films serves as the voiceover.

But nevertheless I want to see the movie this year. The film showed Oct. 19 at the State Theater in Minneapolis, and Nov. 12 at Ritsche Auditorium in St. Cloud.

A few weeks ago &8212; sometime between those two dates &8212; I e-mailed the organizers of the film and asked if they could find interest in Mankato. It isn&8217;t the sort of film shown in movie theaters, so they seek venues wherever there is a market. I helped them by informing them Mankato has Minnesota State University and Mount Kato. Typically, college kids plus a ski resort equals a Warren Buffet film site.

Someone responded. The response said:

&8220;I just e-mailed Minnesota State University&8217;s ski club. Hopefully they get back to me and we can bring the film to your area. Thanks for the e-mail and support!&8221;

That was Oct. 30. I don&8217;t think the movie is coming to Mankato, but I am holding out hope. I am an optimist.

I would have gone to Minneapolis to see it if my fancy had turned to skiing by that date, but it had not. And driving to St. Cloud is a little too far for me.

On the plus side, God gave us snow. Lots of it.

But there aren&8217;t mountains to ski on. And if there were, we didn&8217;t get enough for a good base.

That leaves everyone in our neck of the woods with nothing to do but phone in anonymous complaints to the editor about trivial matters. Life is miserable. Why not bug that guy?

Here&8217;s the latest: A woman asked why did the Albert Lea Tribune do a feature in its Veterans Day section on a veteran who hadn&8217;t faced combat?

I asked her if she also was calling to say something nice about the features we did on veterans who had faced combat. I added that we didn&8217;t pick veterans based on whether they fit into some sort of pigeonhole category and said Veterans Day was for all veterans.

What I did not remind that reader was that I, too, am a combat veteran &8212; albeit merely the first war with Iraq. Whenever I have been with other veterans, we don&8217;t sit around trying to tally the score of who faced the greatest likelihood of death.

But we do talk about our enjoyment of skiing.

And the incredible amount of free time some folks have. The conclusion we come to is this: Those people need to get busy living. Find a good organization and volunteer your efforts. It&8217;s the right thing to do.

As for skiing, I find some like cross-country. I prefer downhill. I learned to ski at Mount Kato. I&8217;ve never been to Welch Village. I&8217;m looking forward to it.

You have been there? Good, tell me about it.

You want to get nothing done? Call the editor and gripe. Oh, and do it anonymously. Yeah. That will fix the world.

You want to get something done? Call the editor, tell him what it is like to ski at Welch Village or something humanly personable like that, develop a friendship with the editor, be cordial, heck, be jocular, and then kindly mention that you&8217;ve got this idea, comment, criticism, what have you.

Great! What is it, my friend?

Because I do appreciate feedback. I really do. And many readers who have called me have heard me say just that. But there&8217;s a difference between feedback and gripes. Gripes are the result of boredom. Feedback comes from inspiration.

Hey! That&8217;s pretty good. I should be quoted in some book of quotations for that one. Maybe I&8217;ll send it in and you&8217;ll find it on your 365 quotations desk calendar for 2007.

Or maybe not.

Because I&8217;m really trying to write a skiing column here. The soldier in me conspired to control the direction of the writing.

Skiing. Yes, it&8217;s a good thing. In fact, while skiing as a teenager, I once imagined that heaven would have skiing and other enjoyable challenges. Heaven, I thought, wouldn&8217;t be heaven if we could instantly be spectacular at skiing or whatever other skills we enjoyed. We might be free of the pressures of money and worldly goods, but on that day I hoped that the challenge of skiing would be part of the bargain.

Downhill skiing, that is.

I don&8217;t know where that leaves you cross-country types.

(I am only kidding, for heaven&8217;s sake. Please, cross-country skiers, do not be outraged.)

(Tribune Managing Editor Tim Engstrom&8217;s column appears every Tuesday.)