Courtesy Whitelines Snowboarding
I can tell you the exact moment snowboarding became cool. It was in 1985 when James Bond fastened helicopter shrapnel to his feet and rode down a mountain on a makeshift snowboard while a bunch of goons on skis struggled to keep up.
I can also tell you the exact moment it became uncool—at least in my world. While discussing the upcoming winter season recently with two millennials, I doubted my age after both of them grew up skiing since, “snowboarding is what my old man does.”
“If I still snowboard, does that make me an old man?” I asked myself. Continue reading…
Excluding my non-bylined commercial writing, here’s what I’ve written for news media lately:
Thanks for reading and sharing.
After rediscovering them again during this year’s Winter Olympics, my respect for downhillers soared. Reading this 30 year old piece on the history of the event makes me respect the sport all the more. From the article:
“I can say that the ideal downhiller must be a little uppity, a little arrogant,” Downhill Charlie says. “I love that type. He has to have guts, and he should always be plenty nervous before the start. And then, too, it doesn’t hurt if he is born poor, because when a skier’s born poor it is in his nature to want to get ahead. Yes, take the poor ones—Klammer, Moser-Pröll, Nadig, Wirnsberger—they all came from tiny villages, from poor parents, and they wanted to prove they were someone through performances on the mountain.” Continue reading…
