I still consider “moving out west” as one of my finest achievements. Growing up a snowboarder, I heard the stories of friends moving out to Colorado to get to the mountains and the good snow. The first wave of my buddies went in 1991. I wanted to go so bad, but took Mom and Dad’s advice and jumped into Northwestern Michigan College. I would be pursuing an associates degree in visual communications. I’d still be living at home, doing pizza jobs in the fall, a tree-trimming job in the summer and ski-lift operator jobs at Mount Holiday over the winter. The two years went by quick and I earned my degree. We were ready to go. I can still feel the excitement we had, all these years later.
When it was time to finally go in the summer of 1993, I was just nineteen years old. Just a pup. And the world exploded for us. In my little Creative Mornings talk I did in 2012, I told the youngsters in the crowd to “move somewhere wild” while they still could. I did it and am so thankful we made the leap.
Bend, Oregon, was our target. Our high school buddy Derek Denoyer had made the jump from a winter in Colorado out to Oregon. His reports back to us were what sealed the deal. So many of our buddies had gone to Colorado.
By the time it was our turn, it didn’t have the same magic. Oregon sounded mysterious! And far away. The anticipation during the summer of 1993 was insane. Bry and I worked at a family restaurant called Sweitzer’s. I was a fry cook and Bry a busboy. We saved every single cent that summer.
I’ll never forget leaving that morning. It was August 10, 1993. Bry and I had packed my ’84 Buick Skyhawk a couple days before in anticipation. Of course, Dad took one look at our half-assed job, had me empty the thing and repacked it. We gained another sizable chunk of space after Dad’s refinement of the packing job. That man knew how to pack a rig.
When it was time to go, everything got quiet. I remember my littlest sister Leah, crying first, and then Mom, and then Dad and how he completely lost it.
I’ll never forget how hard Dad hugged me. I didn’t want to let go. That’s one of the saddest, and yet greatest, moments of my life: Mom and Dad letting me go.
So painful, but absolutely beautiful. Thank you.
I think that’s important for every rat kid from the Midwest. And everywhere.
As hard as that was, I had to do it. This was the classic “leaving the nest”
moment. I remember crying at the intersection where Barnes Road meets Silver Lake Road, and kind of not wanting to go; cars lining up behind me, impatient. We had worked that whole summer, pined over the possibilities of our new lives out west, and here was that big moment, and I was seizing up. I pulled off Barnes and down the big hill of Silver Lake, and it was surreal—
both sad and one of the most exciting moments of my life. Down the hill to grab Bry at his house on Pine Street and off to the West!
I’ll remember that road trip with Bry my whole life. Every place we camped, lurked, ate . . . each state falling away as we made our way out west. The sky seemed so big. And it was.
We went all the way to Bend, Oregon, and locked into a lease for a shit
apartment in a place that we’d learn the locals called “Felony Flats.” That first winter offered up so much for us. We learned how to pay our bills, be frugal, thumb rides up to the hill and, most important, go without. We’d buy our season passes, guaranteeing us access to the mountain and that’s all that mattered.
The priority was to snowboard every day with all our buddies. We all had pizza jobs at night, to cover our minimal rent and expenses. I lived this life for five winters, snowboarding one-hundred-plus days a year in Oregon and all over the West, along with big roadtrips across America every fall and jaunts down to Las Vegas to lurk at the annual snowboarding trade show. The last couple years, we started to explore outside of Oregon. Big road trips with buddies, snowboarding at Jackson Hole, Targhee Pass, Mount Baker, Snowbird and Telluride. We’d go up to Portland every two to three weeks to see bands and hang in the city, then ride Mount Hood Meadows on the way back. La Luna was our place. Saw the Lemon-heads, Sebadoh, Monster Magnet, Paw, the Jesus Lizard, Pavement, Hole, the Meat Puppets, Grant Lee Buffalo, Gwar, Built to Spill, Thirty Ought Six, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, the Red House
Painters, Boss Hog, the Reverend Horton Heat and a little Portland band called Richmond Fontaine, who were opening for Mike Watt.
To youngsters reading this: Save your money and hit the road. While you still can. There’s just something magical about splitting when you are young. The world, it’s so much bigger. The bands, they sound that much better. You aren’t
cynical yet, and everything is new. I’m so thankful to the
skateboard/snowboard culture that propelled us west, out of Traverse City.
Some never leave, and we were lucky to be able to.
It’s the older brothers who did it. Gary Aleshire inspired Hale to go. Hale inspired Shumsky, Miner, Tad, Bug, Murrah and Waller to go. Those animals inspired Derek to go, who planted the seed in Bry and me. And Eric, Johnny and Chad got roped in, too. That’s how this stuff works. Thanks, fellas. We did it when it mattered.
The morning we left. Last bits of advice, minutes before everyone lost it. August 10, 1993.
Bry writing his first letter back to Tracey, somewhere in South Dakota. August 11, 1993.
Early morning method air across the street from Cinder Cone. Mt. Bachelor, OR. 1996.
Jay, Rod, Aaron, Chris, Chad and J.P. 1995.
Robby Hottois blasting! Mt. Baker, WA. 1995.
Cow’s Face, Mt. Bachelor. 1995.
Hiking with the Solid Snowboards team. 1995.
With Chad Smith and John White. 1994.
With Derek Denoyer and Robbie Hottois. 1994.
Hitting jumps on Cinder Cone. 1996.
Taking a break in the Mt. Bachelor lodge with Chris Fink and Chad Smith. 1996.
Mt. Bachelor season pass. Winter 1995/1996.
Couch surfing in some shithole town. 1994.
With Darren and Chad Smith, heading west. 1994.