Words of Wisdom
My wisdom:
Not everyone who rides a snowboard is a snowboarder, but for those who do bear this illustrious title., its an undeniable way of life. High school ends, and the road starts calling-off to mountain towns and the assimilation into weird, transient tribes full of people who work nighttime jobs and cleaning toilets or handing you your coffee in the early mornings, all so they can shove a fistful of tips in their pocket and ride, their real motives beetrayed by goggle tans or chins scuffed raw by gore-tex. In this world, people dont ask you what you "do" they ask you where you work-knowing that what you do is snowboard, just like them. And any job you might have is simply a means for it.
Now, this life is not for everyone. You have to take guff at work from rich tourists peddling snobbery: steal furtive nights' sleep on lumpy odd-smelling couches: take fearful rides down in ski-patrol sleds with a broken wrist or blown knee: spend holidays in the stink and sweat of a restaurant job-far from home and family:and of course, surrender carefree college fun in favor of a different rite of passage. However, for those who live it, all this is part of the reward-freedom from the chain-link fence of a nine-to-five and the privlege of being outside in the mountains every single day.
