6/11/2023 0 Comments Mel family surf championsI took a run with Stratton’s ski patrol to see if I could talk them into allowing snowboarders on the chairlifts. We thought perhaps it was a mistake and we should return the wedding gifts. The process brought up a lot of stuff from my past. The weather was rain, thunder and lightning. The wedding ceremony was at Donna’s parents’ home in Greenwich, Conn with only 12 people present, but the reception had 400 guests. We would hang out and she would help in the factory.ĭuring a torrential downpour, at the age of 29, I married 19-year-old Donna Gaston. Donna attended Columbia University in NYC but she came to Vermont on weekends. I met my future wife Donna at The Mill Tavern in Londonderry, Vermont just after midnight on New Year’s Eve (1981/1982). The phone rang around the clock with toll-free catalog inquiries. The barn was the factory, the living room was the store, the basement was the warehouse and the bedroom was the office. I moved the factory from Londonderry, Vermont to Manchester, Vermont where I bought my first house with a barn. I won the ‘Open’ Division at the National Snurfing Contest in Muskegon, Michigan. John Mel became a good friend who let me use his factory every night and encouraged me. They made surfboards during the day, and I moved in and made snowboards all night. I made prototypes from a furniture making angle (steam bent solid ash) to boat construction (fiberglass chop) to surfboard construction in Peter Mel’s dad’s (John Mel) factory, Freeline Design. By day, I built makeshift snowboard prototypes and tested them in the back hills of southern Vermont. By night, I bartended at the Birkenhaus Inn. So I bailed on my New York job, moved to Londonderry, Vermont and started ‘Burton Boards’ out of a barn in a house where I was the live-in caretaker and tending the two horses. I also (in the back of my mind) knew that surfing on snow could become a sport. I was working 12-14 hours a day and not loving it. I graduated from New York University and worked for a small investment banking firm in Manhattan owned by a friend of my sister, Victor Niederhoffer. I attended NYU for the next four years and went on to become captain of the NYU varsity swim team. ![]() I was in it because I love animals.Įnrolled in night classes at NYU. I tried to pursue a career working with NY thoroughbred racehorses as a trainer but I quit the very day I saw a horse shocked in the nuts prior to a race. Left CU because I was lonely and sad, so I headed back east. This was the beginning of the end of my life as a skier. I sued him (one of two people I have sued in my life) on behalf of snowboarders pursuing a fair Olympic qualification system (without skier input) and won (deservedly so). I was cut by Bill Marolt who went on to become my nemesis at the FIS. I tried out for the CU ski team (reigning NCAA skiing champs), but I didn’t make the team, which was mostly very good Europeans. ![]() ![]() There were 30,000 students and I did not know one. I started college at the University of Colorado Boulder. The total investments of my landscaping business were an old family station wagon, two rakes and some garbage/leaf bags. During my last semester of high school, I moved back to New York for an independent study program (at project Head Start) and started a landscaping business on the side. Graduated from Marvelwood as the valedictorian of my class. My dad turned out to be the best single dad ever after my mom passed. She was my last line of defense between me and my dad (who never hit me, but I never lived up to his expectations). My mother, Katherine ‘Kitty’ Carpenter died (leukemia) of a broken heart from losing her son. My memories revolve around physical activities such as going up to Mohawk Mountain, Snurfing around campus or simply playing pick-up touch football or basketball. At this point in my life, I flipped a switch and became the consummate overachiever. Started attending the Marvelwood School (known as a ‘second chance’ boarding school) which was in Cornwall, CT at the time.
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