We woke to a bright day this morning long befre the kids would wake. Diane and I grabbed tea then took Chai for a walk up to the sand pit.. It was beautiful and quiet  in the woods.. the snow was sparkling and sifting down through the trees.. a perfect winter day.. but  it’s April !  As soon as we got back to the house, Diane went into Richmond to get some bagels..   When she got back, we woke the boys. They cam down and we did our small family Easter celebration. We came together to invite Sam in.. then the kids dug int their candy baskets.. and searched the house for candy filled eggs. It was fun..  

We then sat down to a nice breakfast of smoked salmon and sweet roles.

As soon as breakfast was over, we switched into high gear and  got down to the day’s mission of planning for the Bolton Valley pond skimming.

   Pond skimming if you don’t know, is traditionally held on the last day of the ski / boarding season. Everyone hikes up the hill and comes down on boards, skis, or whatever else.. then tries to make it across the top of  a small pond without getting wet.. Being Easter, today was a particularly good day to try our hand at walking  on water.. and we were not going to be left out.   Last year, Sam and I had dragged our 2 person kayak up there and tried to go down in that.. we did go down.. just not in the direction we intended.. after a few flips we both ended up underwater.. it was a hoot. This year, Gabe had the idea of going down the hill on an old raft that Sam had made out of two inter-tubes, a piece of plywood, a few 2×4’s and a bunch of duct tape..  He’d used the raft to drift down the Winooski last summer.    Max had a secret project for his outfit.. we didn’t see it until right before the event. Over the last couple of days Gabe and I took the old raft and reinforced it with screws, then he Scott and I rigged up a platform that rode under the intertube that had 6 old skis screwed to it.. Last night we lashed the whole thing together with nylon webbing (our only purchase for the project) and built a mast out of PVS. Gabe tied a pirate flag to the top.

his morning we all wrapped ourselves in garbage bags then dressed up as pirates. We made a sign for our ship (“The Spirit of Captain Sam”) and we were ready to go. Around 12 Chris Perren (Plow not Skoobie) came by with his trailer.. we loaded the raft on his trailer and headed up to the mountain. .

   Scott, Nate and I dragged the raft  up the mountain to the starting point for the pond skimming. We’d never tested this thing on snow.. but I can tell you it wasn’t meant to be go up a mountain. 

As soon as we got to the starting spot, Diane brought the bags and we all got into our best Pirate  gear and raised the mast and prepared the ship for skimming. Argggghhh  Matey.

Max showed up with his secret outfit.. he  came as a Ninja.. he’d made a wonderful banner with a picture of Sam as a Ninja.. with the message “Sam Cohn: Beloved friend and Ninja”.. he looked GREAT.

He launched down the hil and made it all the way across.. then fell in the water at the ending ramp.. a nice wet finish. The rest  of us   had to wait for all of the rest of the skimmers to go.. Finally it was our term. First Gabe and Paulo went down as lead pirates.. Gabe did a graceful skim ending with a magnificent face plant in the drink.. He looked great ! As soon as they were clear, Scott lit the smoke bomb on the ‘Spirit of Captain Sam”  Scott, Casey, Matt, and I  jumped aboard, Chris Perron fired a spud gun to send us off and we set sail.. sort of.. It occurred to us as we started to pick up speed that steering would have been a good idea.. maybe next year.. It was terrifying and hilarious as we hurtled down the hill. The crowd started to scatter.. All I remember is seeing about 30 people’s shin bones getting closer and closer to a half ton of us moving down the hill at dangerous speeds.. I was kicking like crazy trying to get us back into the center.. I don’t know if I helped.. but we didn’t hit anyone.. we did however hit the corner of the ramp. I had one of those slow motion  moments imaging us flipping through the  air.. no such luck.. we headed straight into the water. And all of us were thrown  into Davey Jone’s locker.. and a cold locker it was.. no hot was this, Matey.. I think the water was just about 32 degrees..   The nice guy from Colchester Ice Rescue plucked us out of the water… but not before I noticed that the Spirit of Captain Sam was floating proudly in the pond. Our friend Sam Rodgers caught all the pirates in film.. you have to check it out !  (See Sam Rodger’s pond smimming movie)

  We were totally frozen and happy..

Note how happy Diane looks because she’s warm and dry 🙂

With the help of Chris and Scott’s dad, we managed to get the  raft down the hill… I emptied the water out of my boots and headed into the lodge to change and see if I still had  all my fingers and toes. . What a fantastic time  Sam was proud of us I could tell..   I spet about 15 minutes under the hand dryer in the bathroom trying to get feeling back into my fingers.. Once it started to return it was time for the awards.   All of the kids we’re hanging out trying to get warm

We all crowded into the tavern.. We won best float.. (hey we were the only float !)  and won t-shirts for the entire crew.. Max won best tribute for his Ninja Sam .. I was so proud of him. They handed out the rest of the awards.. including ‘Best dressed’ for Ian.. whoo-hooo.. When all of the awards were handed out it marked the official end of the 2006-2007 Bolton Valley season.. the bar emptied and so did the parking lot.. it was a perfect ending for a very fun.. and very difficult and sad season for all of us..

The only downer of the whole day was that in our haste to get down the hill we managed to loose track of two of our three spud guns and a white plastic bag of tools (If anyone has seen them .. please let me know !).. I got home to the Schoolhouse before I realized it.. I quickly got in the car and drove back up to see if I could find them.. I looked through the lodge. No luck.. so I headed up the hill on foot to see if they’d been stuck in the woods somewhere.. I got up there and didn’t see them.. Then I realized that I was in some sort of unofficial way.. the last guy on the hill for the season..   The mountain was empty and the lifts were shut.. it was just me and the snow and the breeze.. So.. I sat down and had a long talk with Sam.. I told him how strongly I could feel him there.. and how much I’d come to love the mountain and the people there this year..   I felt liked he missed us.. but was happy..  .. It felt very pretty peaceful up there.. I toasted him with my last red bull then climbed one of the lift polls and left the can there as a tribute.. (or is that vandalism ? .. not sure)..

It has been a hell of a season my son.. I won’t ever forget it..

Happy Easter everyone.. hug your families today.. it’s time for spring..

-jc

 

 

It’s 11:30 on Saturday night. Diane, Max, Gabe and I just finished watching a  movie together.. It was a really nice evening. The movie was Stranger Than Fiction It was a low key comedy with Will Ferrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Emma Thompson..  It was a cute movie with a sort of twisted plot..  Like every movie or piece of music I hear/watch, I manage to relate the story to Sam.. The story wasn’t particularly sad, but there were two points in this  movie where the associations brought tears to my eyes.. That’s not unusual.. What  is unusual, is that it made me realize that yesterday I don’t think I cried  at all. If that’s true.. it would make yesterday the first totally dry-eyed day I’ve had since last November. I know it seems strange to keep track of such things.. but that’s  just the way my mind works. So.. what do I make of that.. is that progress ? .. or have I lost touch with something ? I’ll have to think some more about that…  I guess it’s just part of my healing  story.

   Speaking of stories.. My family and I would like to start something new. We want to start collecting Sam stories on our SamStones.org website.  things people remember about Sam.. funny stories, things you did with him. We’d also like to hear about the things that remind you of Sam now. We’d love to put these together in a book of Sam that we’d like to have in our family. If you have any good stories, please post them here… and please ask your friends to do the same.. We’d really appreciate it.

   One other thing I’d like to share tonight. Diane just received a copy of her YogaKids newsletter for this month. YogaKids is the program that Diane trained with to begin her yoga practice for kids.  This newsletter has a story that Diane wrote abut Sam’s passing and  how Yoga has helped her heal. I think it’s a beautiful letter. You can read it here

She’s received many wonderful letters in response from other folks in the YogaKids organization. It’s really like a big family for her.

   OK.. tomorrow’s Easter… another milestone.. We’ll be thinking of you Sam. G’nite

-jc

 

 

  

  I’ve been talking to many folks today about our SamStones project today so I think I’ll write a little more about it. As most of you know, SamStones are little fired clay rocks with Sam’s name on them. We’ve been making them at community gatherings since just after Christmas. The idea first started when Diane was thinking about what gift to Sam we should have in his Christmas stocking. I came up with the idea of having Sam’s name sand blasted into some nice river stones that we’d found in the Huntington river.

Turns out that we all loved holding and rubbing these stones and started thinking about how we could make enough to give to our friends. Our friend Jen, a potter, had the great idea of making replicas of these real stones out of clay. She made name stamps by pressing heat-setting Sculpy into the sandblasted names on the rocks. We then had our first SamStones party at a potluck at our house. Since then we’ve had at least 4 more, At each we start  with two bricks (40 pounds) of potter’s clay. Everyone grabs small handfuls of clay and form them into small shapes.. some are small flattened disks, some are  circles, some are  hearts.. some are  other fancy shapes. Then we stamp Sam’s name into the clay using the Sculpy stamps. We then lay them out on the table to dry.  It’s so much fun to do this kind of dirty hands-on squishy work with our adult and kid friends. The atmosphere at these parties is really filled with love.

 When they were dry enough to handle, Jen takes them up to her house and puts in the color. Sometimes she has a few of our friends over to help with these steps. First they take a dark iron oxide stain and puts it in the imprinted letters.. then after letting it dry, they sand the stain off of the raised surface, leaving just Sam’s name darkened. Then they hand writes our website Samstones.org on the back with iron oxide stain. Then they fire the stones.

At this point we’ve made several thousand. Our original idea was to had them out to friends in our community. We have a bowl of them at our house for people to take. We encourage folks to either keep them, pass them on or put them in places special to them or to Sam. I’ve also gotten in the habit of taking them to pass out to friends when I travel too, We’ve even put a way to request a SamStone from our website.  Our hope is that people will find the SamStones and see Sam’s name and feel some of the love that went into making them. We also hope they check out the web site and learn a little about Sam and his family, see some pictures, hear some of Sam’s music and see  the legacy he left. We also have information there on the Sam Cohn Foundation we’ve created to fund scholarships in music, snowboarding, and summer camps. On the website you can leave a story about Sam.. or request a SamStone.. or let us know where you placed or found one. We even have a map that let’s you see where the SamStones are ending up.

   Anyway.. we’ve been making SamStones for about four months and now we’re getting several SamStone stories a week. I was looking today at all of the stories at it really makes me feel so good to read them and look at the pictures and movies people have sent like these I got from my Friend Robert today. he and his family placed this SamStone in High Hartsop Dodd – Cumbria England,

I’ve been adding all of them to the map on SamStones. 

  

Each of these ‘pins’ is a story someone has sent us about a SamStone they’ve placed.  Many of them have pictures and videos. Here’s a quick list of some of them that are on the map. Check some of them out !

 

• Arenal Costa Rica

• Our home

• Ephesus Turkey

• Shanghai China

• Chris and Wendy’s – Tucson

• Judy and Hugh – Sam’s Grandparents

• Gabe and Marcia – Sam’ Grandparents

• Tulum Mexico

• Cichenitza Mexico

• Key West Florida

• Whistler Canada

• Utila Honduras

• Jay Peak

• Boeblingen Germany

• Mount Norris Vermont

• Point Judith Lighthouse

• Chamonix France

• Troy NY

• Union College

• Aruba !

• John in Shanghai

• Austin Skatepark

• The Peters put SamStones in Tahoe

• The Peters put SamStones at Vail

• In Sydney

• “Shangril-la hotel Shanghai “

• Sydney Harbor

• Cheng Huang Mountain

• Delhi India

• Ottowa CA

• Montreal CA

• Washington DC

• Boynton Beach FL

• El Castillo – Costa Rica

• Virgina Beach

• Miami Beach

• Camels Hump Middle School

• Sandringham Beach – Melbourne

• Reyonosa Mexico

• High Hartsop Dodd – Cumbria England

• Tokyo – japan

• Senegal

 

Each one of these is a sign of folks love and caring.. I’m really glad that we started this. Please help us out by helping us cover the world in SamStones.  Well.. It’s a Friday night.. I’m going to veg out and be with my family.. Gnite all. Gnite Sam.

-jc

 ps. Gabe got his Lacrosse mouth guard in the mail today.. isn’t it lovely ? Nice smile !

Today was relatively peaceful.. Chai and I went for a run this morning in about 3 inches on new snow.. I was pretty sure that snow season was gone.. but here I am.. one more day writing Sam’s name in the snow.   Chai loves the snow because she can follow the trails of dogs and other animals that have used the trail before us.. She ran off after some tracks this morning and it took me about 10 minutes to find her.. grrrrrr. 

    I always like this time of year when the snow comes and covers the mud.. I don’t know why it appeals to me so much.. I think it’s that the clean white covers up the brown gunk that is forming everywhere.. For those of you who don’t live in Vermont.. we’re  in Mud Season… the fourth season in Vermont. It’s when the dirt roads finally thaw out leaving pools of axel deep mud.. Lovely. .. but it makes Vermont, Vermont.. and how I love Vermont !

   I had another full day at work.. I am now back at nearly the same level of over programming that I was before Sam died. That means that nearly every minute of every day is filled with some meeting or other.. generally a teleconference. .  That means I’m in my office with the door closed pacing circles with the speaker phone on.. .  I think it will be hard to do..   I don’t even usually have time for lunch. In some ways it feels good to be getting back in the swing of things.. at the same time.. I’m being very protective of the lower stress and more mindful John that I’ve become over the past four months. I’m going to have to work very hard not to work too hard.. if htat makes any sense.

    For those of you who have never seen my office.. .. here’s office number 2..

Note that there’s nothing on the walls and practically no furniture. I moved in here about a year ago  when office number 1 got filled with junk. The walls are covered with pictures. I haven’t even been in there in about 5 months.. .. I need to go in there and clean it out.. that’s going to be hard to do on many levels.. For what it’s worth.. I’m being  asked to move into office number 3 pretty soon.. Maybe I just work out of a suitcase 

   Sometimes when I’m on conference calls I work on the SamStones website trying to organize it better.   I’m always open to suggestions on how to make it more interesting and worthwhile.   Today I added a widget on SamSttones.org  and on my blog that shows where peoples are who have visited the sites… I’m kind of curious who’s reading this blog and where they are..   It’s kind of strange writing all this stuff down and not knowing where it goes.. It’s also kind of fun.. in an exhibitionistic kind of way.

   Tonight is pretty peaceful.. Gabe just came down from an afternoon snowboarding. Evidently conditions are great at Bolton again.. Max is in the barn really working hard to finish up his Pratt work.. He seems to be making good  progress now.. Diane just came back from being out with Deb and Jen while they waited for the girls at dance lessons..  .. and I’m just sprawled out on the couch relaxing .. Life is approaching  good….  at times. .. Sam.. at times..

-jc