It is a bracing Fall day, with blue sky and foliage just barely turning the corner from peak to past.  Having burned bright, leaves are starting to drop and swirl then collect themselves in corners of field.  The pitch is decorated with posters and carved pumpkins and signs of well wishes created by teammates.  Pictures of Dehlia and her senior co-captains are propped up for one last look.  Introductions and pictures and then one last whistle gets things underway. An injured and under-girled squad all year, the outcome of one last home game will be as anticlimactic as last-of-anythings tend to be.  Dehlia and the seniors have played hundreds of games together, connecting back to when they were near-toddlers, pre-teens, teens and now pulling themselves up one last rung toward being young women.  Always on the same team.  The same fields, the same lines.  Standing tall together, falling down, and getting up again. Thousands of hours of practice, improving themselves and creating ties to each other that are there even when the girls can’t see them. We make too much of these things and too little of them at the same time.  These lasts.  Finding difficulty in fully appreciating any moment that we’re in, due to the begrudging acknowledgement that it won’t last.  Except that sometimes it does. A battered North Country squad loses to a good Colchester team 5-2.  I find myself staring at my daughter and thinking about what’s come before and what’s still in front of her.  I think about her new ACl, her brace and the bruises that come with effort and perseverance and hope.  I look at Olivia and Hannah and Faith and I see them, simultaneously, as toddlers and young women.  Girls we’ve watched and cheered and loved since their parents tied their cleats and showed them how to slide in their shin guards and taught them about offsides and how to shake hands.  And how we all tried to keep both arms around these fantastic girls even as we tried to push them away.  Pushing them forward.  I think about their coaches and assistant coaches and the thousands of hours of dedication that is impossible to ignore but now, somehow even harder to remember as memories that used to be specific give way to thoughts that have turned much more general.  I wonder about the women they’ll turn into at the same time I marvel at the girls they’ve become. They all play hard despite knowing what the likely outcome is.  They put their arms around each other one last time, pose for pictures, then stride across the field with their parents who are alternating between putting their sunglasses up and then pushing them back down again.  The breeze has picked up and what’s left of the blue, late-afternoon light reminds me more of winter than late fall.  Part of the ‘Congratulations Seniors’ banner has already come unhinged and is flapping against itself and we talk about how the season would have been different with Dasha, and Libby and a healthy Faith.  I spend a few minutes looking around.  At the grass and benches and ball-boys headed off the field.  At coaches and teammates. At the tree that overhangs itself into the field of play, now leave-less.  At the scoreboard that blinks twice and shuts off. Having come straight from work, I have my own car and return to it, alone.  My wife and her aunt head to their car and Dehlia to hers.  I’ve left my passenger side window open, and a few leaves have blown in.  My Bluetooth connects immediately after I turn the car over and randomly, or maybe not so, Birdsong comes on; a song I would sing to Dehlia at bedtime when she was little.  ‘ All I know is she sang a little while and then flew on .’  Even though Garcia is talking about Janis Joplin and her untimely death, it’s impossible for me not to connect the line to my daughter, her friends and the inevitability of growing and changing and leaving.  I sit for a minute with my car idling and listen to the rest of the song. ‘If you hear that same sweet song again, will you know why? ’  In the same way I never expected girls’ soccer to impact my life in the way it has, I’m sure I won’t recognize the importance of the next song that comes along, until it’s already started.  I look forward to singing along with it, though, when it does.

Chic Schafer of Sea Bright New Jersey, by way of Rumson and Red Bank New Jersey and hundreds of globe points afar, passed away yesterday a few hours before sunset. He had just turned 95. He was a member of the Jay Peak way-backers. Way back past the slides and pillows and hockey sticks and such. He had some of the first Garden-State vanity plates ascribed to Jay Peak. He owned ISKIJ long after his eyesight stole his license from him. He was an ambassador before we really had ambassadors. He’d stand around wearing one of his own jackets with a makeshift Chic Schafer/Guide nametag and a thatch of, at the time, grey-but-whitening beard. He smiled a lot. He said hey to everyone and he gave directions. Some of them, useful. I once witnessed this interaction: Chic: Hey there shooter. Guest: Can you tell me if there’s anything going on after the lifts close? Chic: Yeah (insert gravel here), there’s some sort of beer-party and one of those bands up there (points to the IR); just take the stairs up and I bet they’ll take you there. Guest: Great, what time does it happen? Chic: (Smiling) How would I know? I can’t stand that noise. (Pats guest on back, sends guest away). He’d be out there in everything. Sideways snow, slop, cold, pissing rain, everything. He’d duck into customer service now and again (the locations of which would change 3 times across his tenure), his face generally crimson, but his smile still wide. Frozen, likely. He’d start every day the same. Second or third person in the office early Saturday morning. A stop at Linda or Emilie Starr’s for a half a cup of coffee, a borrowed drop of the pure in my office, and a plop down onto my chair. “Ok speedball what do we got today.” Not really caring what we had, as his approach to each day was unmoved by any change of business. A smile, a look into a guest’s eyes, a handshake, a hug and a few words of philosophy born of what he had borne. New Jersey summers, western ski trips, cycling gangs, stock market seats, investment strategies and family, always family. All of it bound together by a true and mighty craic that encircled him wherever he walked and wherever he landed. Across the years and seasons he introduced hundreds of people to Jay Peak and they, in turn, hundreds and hundreds more. Some came for a season and left. Others stayed. It’s tough to walk the parking lot, on any given Saturday still, and not find 6 degrees of Chic Schafer, oftentimes just 1 or 2 degrees, with whoever you run into. He crossed lines that wound around staff members, season passholders, day trippers, locals, and homeowners. And then he tied those lines together with a glass of Burgundy in one hand, and an arm wrapped around your shoulder. I last saw him several months back, dropping off food for him in his assisted living space. He had turned it into a view-heavy condominiumized version of the the NYSE, with a fax machine, notes from his broker scattered on the floor, a Baron’s Investment News open to the quotes, and a refrigerator full of lo mein, dutifully brought to him by his friend Tom Liu; a fellow Jay Peak homeowner who’d drive :45 minutes with me at least once a summer to see him. We’d break him out of his assisted living area for a few hours and retreat to a garage in the area where Chic held court. He was at home among a community of blue collars in the area who revered him. As importantly, they listened to him. ‘A glass maybe two then we’re out Steveo. Gotta get back before the warden misses us.’ We’d always get him back in time before the market closed. I never saw a warden. We talked about how the season went. He wanted to know how Joanie was, how Linda Starr was, and her daughter the real smart one. How was she? ‘Aw man Steveo’, he’d say, ‘this winter is going to be a big one isn’t it? I can tell. We’re due boy, aren’t we?’ He’d say it every single summer. The winters would generally prove him right. He passed away last night right around dinnertime. He was surrounded on all sides by a wide, loving family, both in the area and not, that he steered by not steering it. Not consciously at least. He used love, an impossible reserve of generosity, and an honest spirit of hospitality to keep everyone moving in the right direction. If you didn’t know him, it still felt an awful lot like you did. Already friends? Well, there was very little he wouldn’t do for you. Or your friend. He was a giver and he was glad to help. He looked for opportunities to help. It was something he was very good at; all the way to dinner last night. There aren’t a lot of people like that. And now there’s one less. Skol Chickie.. -Steve

Wise men say, only fools rush in. Senior year has been less than it was marketed to be and getting to the finish line, a line separating yesterday from tomorrow, was a feat onto itself. I am alone in a condo writing this and forecasting what that day will be like. Waking up here and you, there. I can already feel the result of pride running up my arms and goose-bumping them the way Eyes of the World does (to both of us). What you’ve overcome to get here. The things you’ve said yes to, what you’ve said no to, and what you’ve pressed pause on. From the day you were born, you’ve been resilient. You had a gear available to you that you didn’t quite know how to access yet. But you have. This year, you’ve shifted into it. Juggling senior year issues and breaking parents and the weight that comes when things get heavy. I knew you were resilient for sure, but I didn’t know the extent of it. I do now. You, standing here at both a finish line and a starting gate, I wonder how you’ve survived it, and I can’t help but wonder if, given similar circumstances, I would of. And that’s what you hope for as a parent; that all the love and effort and sacrifice you put into raising your kids, raises them up and past anything you could have accomplished yourself. That’s what I’m thinking about here as I write this. Where you are against where you started and how many steps existed between there and here. Shall I Stay, Would it be a Sin? You are 4. Possibly 5. The age is less important than the reality that you’re too young to be doing what you’re doing. And I’m videoing it. On an ancient JVC-180 camcorder that weighed as much as a toaster oven and had similar output quality. You would always turn on when it was turned on, but this was unique even for you. You had acquired the phrase, ‘I’m thinking Up, I’m thinking down’ from some teen Disney movie, or inappropriate Cartoon Network slop or some interaction with a classmate and future Newport City felon. Regardless, you were singing it over and over (and over and over) again into a battery-less plastic microphone and growing more sincere with each stanza. The pace of your phrasing continued to quicken until you caught yourself and noticed the crowd of family members that had assembled to quietly take in your performance. Rather than let the shyness overtake you, you drop into a slow, very deliberate ‘I’m thinking down sometimes, sometimes…”, end the show and immediately ask to see the footage. I had yet to put together that this was your essence. Performing. Adjusting. Recalibrating. And Reviewing. This approach to life would come to serve you. You just didn’t know it yet. I remember looking at the video myself wondering where this kid came from. But also feeling very sure about where you might go. Like a River Flows, Surely to the Sea. We are in the pit at Gillette Stadium. You are wearing a yellow-flowered sundress with pink pansies and a flower crown you bought in the parking lot. Your hair is curled. Your makeup is there but just enough to make someone wonder if it’s perfect skin. We are 15’ away from the stage, with your sister and associated group of friends, close enough to see the deep lines in Bob Weir’s face, but I can’t take my eyes off of you. You light up when you realize, after a few seconds, that the first notes of Eyes of the World are landing. And you scream once the song settles in. You’re moving to the music in a way that is not normal for someone your age and with so few songs under your tour belt. But it is the result of more than a decade of dancing and discipline and practice. And while I’m sure I was listening to the music, all I can remember is thinking about how gracefully you moved, how you knew exactly where to bend and dip-even with your eyes completely closed- and how your smile would build from the corners of your mouth, slowly, and spread across your face. The way it always does when you realize that the moment you were in, was one worth savoring. I took your lead and closed my own eyes and thought about all of my good fortunes and how every single one of them took a back seat to this one. Darling, so it Goes-Some Things Are Meant to be. You’re dancing again. This time at Olivia’s wedding. And this time you’ve drained a combination of Courvoisier, several glasses of wine, an assemblage of High Noon’s and, to your definition, ‘Something red and peppery, and disgusting.’ But no one can keep up with you. Not your family. Not your friends in attendance. Not the twenty-somethings contorting themselves to keep pace. I pull you aside and tell you what I’ve always told you. That if all these dance lessons did nothing more than make you a beast at weddings, it was worth it. You laugh it off and head back onto the floor and a small circle has widened and folks take turns dropping into your orbit until they burn up and beg off. I am on the periphery, taking it all in having no interest in even trying to keep up. I am watching you command the floor, the room, without you having much of an idea about what you’re doing. I swallow down the lump forming in my throat that visits anytime a mix of emotion and love and daughter come together. I think about your own wedding. What it might look like. Knowing that Elvis will be playing, and I am projecting forward to what I might say in front of a room. Trying to parse all of the love I have for you into some small consumable bite. I think about how impossible that will be and I’m lost for a minute. 2 Be Loved by Lizzo ends and you walk back over to me, sweating, and put your arm around me and ask me where I am. I mention that I’m right here and you say ‘No you’re not Dad, but I love you’ and I think, for a minute, about writing that down. I don’t, realizing there’s little chance I’d ever forget it. Take My hand, Take My Whole Life Too. You’ve been working on this one with Kaleb for a while. Your duet. You’re only 14 but carry yourself, longer and cooler than that. You’re performing to the Hollies, Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress and are about to be thrown into the air, multiple times, across the 2:30 performance. You are nervous but you have your version of a game-face bolted on. I’m standing alone at the front of the North Country Auditorium, within a few feet of the stage after being asked to not stand and not be within a few feet of the stage. You are wearing a short black dress; black patent leather dance shoes and your hair is pulled back into a ponytail with a black ribbon. For the first few minutes you and Kaleb interact with each other, he is pursuing you, the Long Cool Woman, while you duck and dive away from him in an attempt to create a certain amount of tension between pursuer and pursuee. He finally catches you and, following script, throws you into the air across what seems an impossible distance. Your form is flawless and when you stick the landing, and at the height of the Hollies singing, ‘That Long Cool Woman Had it all. Had it All.’ you strut off-stage looking back at the pursuer with a smirk that takes the air out of the room. I’m happy the crowd is going crazy, both for your own ego, but so that no one notices the puddle I’ve been reduced to. I’m feeling something more than pride, but I can’t put my finger on what it is. You come out from backstage and high five me but you keep sauntering past and I wonder, not for the first time, where you came from. For I Can’t Help, Falling in Love With You. It is your first day at United Christian Academy. You are about to turn 9. You started a few years prior at Newport City but after a series of startling events, not the least of which was being named ‘person in charge of calling the principal if any of the students flip over a desk and attack the teacher’, we decide to initiate a move for you. As with punches before, you roll with these and are happy to don a uniform made up of a green plaid skirt, white blouse, and polished black shoes. We park the car; I remind you to grab your lunch and ask if you’re nervous. ‘I’m not sure’ I remember you saying which suggested to me you both were and were not. You’re holding my hand and I can’t delineate where your sweat ends and mine begins. We walk up a flight of stairs and then another and someone holds the door open for us and someone that I no longer remember asks, ‘Are you Maeve’ You say ‘Yeah’ and we keep walking past her into the front foyer. I make the assumption you’re too old, or too nervous or too not nervous to kiss goodbye so I tell you to have a great day and that I can’t wait to talk to you after you’re done from school and to remember to eat your grapes because they’re green and firm just how you like them. I spit all of this out as quickly as possible because a bell rings and it’s a Christian school and I feel like an interloper. I spin to leave, and you ask me if I’m forgetting something and then take full two strides to me, throw your arms around my neck, kiss me and say, ‘I Love you Dad.’ You turn, dip around a corner and you’re gone. I walk back through the front door, down the steps, past more skirts and pleated pants and white blouses and into my car. I toggle to Elvis’ I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You on Spotify, a song you’ve already identified, at 7 years old, as being your wedding song and realize that falling deeper in love, at least with your daughter, is beyond anyone’s help, even the King’s.

Chapter 1 Settling into my seat, 13a, I let out a deep breath, relax my shoulders and sigh. My wife and 4 yr old daughter are in b and c, fastened tightly and excited. While Dehlia is smiling in a not-sure-what-the-hell-is-happening way, my wife is craving, it appears, a pre 9am drink and the other half of her Valium. “Do you think I should take this now?” “What if it wears off half way through?” “What is that whining sound?” When Brooke is nervous, she asks lots of rhetorical questions. I suggest she take the other half of her valium just to see what will happen and she dismisses me, immediately, and puts her attention to Dehlia and the whining sound of engines kicking to life. Half of the family we’d seen gnashing and tearing at each other in the Logan Duty-Free is sitting in front and just to the right of us—apparently having given Social Services the slip just in the nick. The 5 year-old is positioned directly behind me and seems to have a surplus of energy; evidenced by him landing successive kidney punches to his smaller brother who is bawling. He is grinning as his brother continues to wail. I whisper to him that his brother is going to pound him later and he pays me no mind. He is standing. He will stay standing, in one form or another, for the entire trip. I begin to consider the events and circumstances leading up to our family vacation. By the grace of my in-laws, we’re presented with 2 weeks accommodations, a plane ticket for our three-year old daughter, and the opportunity to cavort with several sets of cousins in the town of Dingle, co. Kerry Ireland. According to family legend, Dingle boasts more than 60 pubs crammed into its cobblestoned corners, it’s very own Dolphin that’s taken up in its bay, and was used as backdrop for countless movies dating back to Robert Mitchum era Hollywood. It’s not that I didn’t want to go to Ireland—just that I never really considered it—sort of like how you never really consider visiting, say, Kansas. To me Ireland was wet and dank and smelled vaguely of boiled dinner and soap. When Dehlia asked me what there was to do in Ireland it took me a while to answer. ‘Well,” I said, “I’m not sure.” Despite my indifference, I did a fair job at staying neutrally interested without being too much of a dick.. I even managed to read ‘A Pocket Guide To Erin’, by Dara O’Maoildhia, hoping to kick-start my curiosity through historical reference. I drank pints of Guinness, memorized the words to several grotesquely popular Irish folk songs and even managed to learn exactly two unwritten hurling rules, those being—don’t leave your mouth guard in your locker, and whenever there’s a question always opt for the larger bottle of Ibuprofen. I read up on Michael Collins, Eamon deValera, the Vikings, the Black and Tans and the Sinn Fein. I even tried an Irish brogue on for size, alone at home mind you, which sounded like awful stew of Crocodile Hunter and Margaret Thatcher. My wife had been to Ireland several times over the past 20 years and promised me that I’d love the country. My father-in-law Brendan, a prodigious man with a soulful voice and the patience of Job, still has relatives scattered across the mountainous Southwest under the shadow of Mt. Brandon. To my wife, visiting these relatives was at the core of our trip and she assured me that after meeting them, I’d ‘understand a little better.’ 5 hours into the flight, and both my daughter and wife are sleeping. I’m staring, unknowingly, at a man who’s been asleep for the entire trip—from take-off, through several snacks, two meals, a movie and a patch of turbulence that caused the flight attendants to buckle up and close their eyes. I saw them. He opens his eyes in an instant and catches me staring at him. He rights his chair, fastens his seat belt and, I suspect, begins to look for something sharp to wave at me. I’ve actually dozed off a little when the boy behind starts applying forearm shivers to my headrest. His mother, sitting next to him, doesn’t appear to have much of a strategy. For the duration of the flight, she has been half-heartedly attempting to control him by repeating the mantra, ‘Do you want a smack?’ 50 or 60 times. Or perhaps it was ‘Some smack.’ It’s hard to be sure. In any case, mum was the one who got the smacks: the first, a right ding to the jaw, and the second-a direct shot with the tail-end of a Hot Wheels muscle car. The little fella was clearly in charge here. You had the feeling he’d really lay into dear mom after landing. ‘So what was that on the plane about a smack?’ ‘Nothing dear.’ ‘Come here a minute, would you mother?’ Along with wife and daughter, I’d be staying with several iterations of in-law, my wife’s mentally handicapped but keenly self-sufficient aunt, and a tribe of family friends rotating in and out on an almost daily basis. The 4 bedroom apartment with pay-as-you- go electricity and recently laid wood floors had been rented for an entire month by my wife’s parents, Brendan and Loretta who, in turn, figured they’d ruin their own vacation by offering space to everyone they knew within a 1,200 mile radius. Right on cue, everyone accepted. I imagined, from the relative spaciousness of 30,000 feet, that ‘cozy’ might be the understatement of the year. As the wheels unfold-- mum, two flight attendants and a man by the window are still trying to get Junior buckled down, when two nip bottles of Bushmills roll back from underneath the seat in front of me. ‘Em, sorry,’ says a quiet Irish voice. ‘Those are probably mine—could you pass them back.’ I’m a little intrigued by the short whisky drinker in front of me, but my attention is busy being occupied by the short tantrum thrower in back. ‘”So help me, you’re going to get a smack.” I’m now openly rooting for mum to close the deal, but Junior shows no fear and continues to thrash. The glamour of airline travel is beginning to wear off. As we touch down in Shannon the day is just starting, but I feel like I’ve been awake for a generation. We refuel, take on a few more passengers, then move another hour toward Dublin and the eastern coast of the country. It’s a damp, gray day that doesn’t exactly paint the picture my wife has been selling. My daughter asks me if we’re in Ireland yet and tells me, ‘I really want a drink Daddy.’ Just before touching down, I’m thumbing through the appropriately titled, ‘Idiot’s Guide To Irish History and Culture’, where I read about craic. The term (pronounced crack) refers to ‘a cross between mojo, synchronicity and the unspeakable but noticeable power present during moments of bliss.’ This craic, often led by the adjective ‘mighty’, is available in varying doses throughout Ireland-in combinations of its ‘Pubs , snugs, rolling green hills and accommodating peoples.’ I write the word down in my book. Craic. Then we head out of the plane.

In no way did I expect to feel like this. Driving southbound on route 93, headed to drop off Dehlia at Plymouth State College, followed on all sides by rain and fog and rain, my windshield wipers barely keeping up with any of it, I’m fine. Even The Last Trip To Tulsa, a 10 minute psychedelic, acoustic chestnut that closed out Neil Young’s 1968 self-titled release, fails at dropping me into the blue; it shows up on a playlist looking to have at me, but it doesn’t work. I figure something is definitely up. None of the forecasted melancholy is anywhere to be found. Summer was running out of what little steam it started with by the time mid-August showed up. My wife had assembled pallets of supplies dedicated to my daughter’s freshman year. Items ranging broadly from facial creams and feminine stuffs to snacks, a monstrous assemblage of push-pins, an 8″ foam mattress pad and a bushel of barely-red Macintosh Apples. ‘It will be good for her to have apples.’ My wife said. ‘It’s always nice to have apples.’ To the apple and face-cream pallet we added things like refrigerators, industrial-fans, a brown box-kayak-sized-presumably filled with gold bars, and a complex shelving system that I brought up three flights of stairs into the elevator-less Blair House on August 18th at barely 9am. Blair House sits directly across from a spot where Robert Frost lived when he was a teacher at Plymouth State and, closer still, to a severe looking green dumpster with an arrangement of locks protecting it from things like pallets and industrial-fan boxes. Plymouth started as an all-girls college and, as such, the uniform of the day included the wearing of skirts. This 24/7/365 expectation drove the need for, or at the very least an interest in, a subterranean tunnel system connecting all the dorms and classrooms. Legend suggests that 1st year students Blair and Mary Lyon (whose name connects to the abutting dorm) were sister-friends and, breaking curfew one night, were killed inside the tunnel connecting the two dorms. Their spirits apparently still wander the halls scaring kids and making belongings disappear. Given the fruit in Dehlia’s room, it’s possible they pocket several for other ghost-friends with little chance of notice. Blair has the coziness of an urgent-care center with bleached, colorless walls, cold-tile floors, two beds and two under-sized dressers. Dehlia and my wife make things a touch more cheerful by adding some pictures and color and apples, and it feels somewhat less like a sanatorium by the time we head to the dining hall for fajitas. We are dropping our daughter off two weeks prior to classes starting for soccer work outs and the coaches have mentioned that, by 2p, parents need to be (the fuck) out, and ‘headed home.’ I catch myself staring at D, at times, during lunch. Trying to memorize her face a little, and thinking melodramatic thoughts about dropping her at schools for the past 12 years. I note her expressions. The way her eyes bend and shrink, sometimes, when she smiles and the way she purses her lips together when she laughs with food in her mouth. She’s clearly whatever the opposite of nervous is. Maybe it’s happy and maybe it’s relief or maybe it’s something different still. I’m still expecting to get run over by emotion at some point, it just isn’t now. She seems unstressed and excited and it’s difficult for me to drum up anything close to what I thought I’d be feeling. We drive to the field-house where the coaching staff has asked for prompt attendance-starting a two week stretch of flexibility testing, concussion benchmarking and a set of fitness expectations that have concerned Dehlia all summer. If she’s nervous about it now, though, she’s either buried it, or turned it into something else by the time we’re hugging her and saying goodbye. There are no tears and no real threat of them from what I can see. We tell her how we know she can do it and to believe in herself and then we’re gone. She’s gone. She waves at us, without looking back, and disappears into the un-ironic, delicately branded All-Well Center with a small group of girls who have no idea about how close they’re about to become. On the way home, my wife and I talk about how shocked we are about the lack of tears, how strong Dehlia looked and how not-so-awful the fajitas were. We talk about how these events are often emotional let downs and consider the likelihood of coming apart at some point in the future when we have less of an expectation to. At home, I look at some pictures on my phone that I was able to snap. Of Dehlia and Brooke in 330 Blair and of Dehlia and her roommate sitting on 8” foam mattress pads and of Robert Frost and his dumpster. There’s one picture of Dehlia smiling, her eyes shrinking and curling, the way they do when she’s confident, that starts to get into my throat, but it goes away when I flip to a picture of her holding a circus-sized waffle cone with dried chocolate ice cream under her eye. I don’t feel anything resembling sad. Or longing. Or gloom. In an attempt to find something to make me ache a little, I turn on the 3rd game of a 4 game series against the Indians. Giving up 6 runs on 8 hits in 3 and 1/3rd, Red Sox starter Matt Barnes is doing his all to help me out. But he gets out of his jam and the fog stays lifted. Brooke goes to bed and I sit around watching the Sox deflate, trying to process what did and didn’t happen during the day. I walk through some old photo albums trying one last time to flip an emotional switch. I watch an old soccer video on my phone, read a poem she wrote for Father’s Day when she was 14 and re-read some of my old journal entries from when we dropped her off at Newport City in the first grade. “She looks like an old lady” I said, “someone that has some store of knowledge that she doesn’t yet have access to. When I left her there, I felt something new buckle inside of me. I don’t know what it was necessarily but I both never want to feel it again and want to feel it, again, immediately. Weird.” Nothing much moves until I see a tweet come through from her right before I head up to bed. ‘Can’t believe how at home you can feel at a place that feels so little like home.’ I think about that. About her recognizing what things aren’t and what they are. About how relieved her relief makes me. And about how connected parent’s feelings are to those that our kids are experiencing. I go to bed happy and content and relieved and that convinces me a bit, that my girl is feeling something close to that as well.

The Doheny’s, Mick and Peg, sit on nearly 80 years of combined service; Peg womanning one of the most respected ski patrol’s in the business and Mick, former Ski School Director, who only taught more people the love of skiing than anyone in the North American ski industry. They both found their respective callings here at Jay Peak and, as is the case, stayed connected to each other by always calling. Peg’s radio call sign was 601. Mick was, quite simply, Micky. So hearing ‘601 to Micky’ was as standard a radio-call here at Jay Peak as was, the ubiquitous, ‘here comes the snow folks.’ Powerline has always been a favorite trail of Peg’s; it’s double fall line and natural snow magnet has been the main draw. But also because other folks tend to disturb other lines on other trails. And Peg is just fine with undisturbed lines. This season Powerline, and Peg and Micky really, assumes a new title (while holding onto the same precious identities) in honor of two Jay Peak team members who’ve left their own marks on the mountain while at the same time the mountain was imprinting on them. So now the former Upper Powerline is ‘601’, the lower portion is ‘Micky’ and the only way to get the whole of it, the way these two lions of Jay have done for the past 4 decades, is to send it down 601-to-Micky. The soundwave graphic below represents both the calls-to-action and the sort of dedicated calling required to have your own trail named after you. Congrats to Peg and Mick. Long may you run. Do You Have What It Takes To Have a Trail Named After You? First thing you’ll need is zero desire to have a trail named after you. Is that you? If yes, continue. If no, back to your job in the Marketing Department. Understanding Old School to mean ‘All the stuff I still do’ Micky wears neither a neck gaiter nor a helmet (I know, sue him), and still eats carbohydrates with passionate abandon (and burns them at a similar clip). Productivity Ahead of Reactivity Peg pioneered ski safety at Jay Peak by looking for ways to prevent accidents before they happen. Ski patrol can always be counted on to respond, but Peg’s preparedness mantra emphasized proactivity. Work Hard. Play Hard. It’s Easy. Whether inhabiting the psychic space of ULLR at Jay Peak Welcome Parties (exhorting folks to drink more beer. And then more beer.) or donning a familiar tutu once temps warmed to above freezing, Mick and Peg took their jobs seriously while taking themselves decidedly less so. Shaping the Mountain By Being Themselves Through opening up boundaries and making glade skiing more accessible, Peg served as the motivating force that encouraged us to venture into the trees. Micky taught mogul skiing with flair, ease and graceful spins and helped popularize runs you’ll never see on a map and we’ll never mention. Queasy Like Saturday Morning Micky’s strong, smooth turns are the net result of 4 decades of hustle while Peg can still beat anyone to the bottom when the clock she’s racing against is connected to someone else’s well-being. What won’t Micky miss? January. Peg? Saturdays. You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello. While Peg and Mick are retiring from their present roles, those who know where to look will still be able to find them. Mick as part of Jay Peak’s Ambassador Program and Peg working part time (sans Saturdays) in Patrol. And if you happen upon the old Powerline Trail some puffed-up grey day this winter, and see two folks breeze by you, pay no attention; that’s how they prefer it.

Given what we’ve been through these past few years, how aggressively we’ve grown and added and expanded, it’s well-considered to be the height of irony when we set out to strike a minimalist spirit inside the walls of this year’s Jay Peak Magazine. While we realize the beauty of simplicity and the power of the pared-down, we also realize there’s a time and a place to preach the gospel of too-much-of-everything-is-just-enough. And, really, that’s part of the allure of this place. That we can simultaneously be all things to all people. The snowboarder. The Skater. The Climber. The Plunger. And, at the same time, make you feel that we were created, and did some of the creating, just for you. We fit the one, just as expertly as we fit the all. And you can only do that when you pay as much attention to what you leave out and subtract, as what you add and fit in. Maximizing the minimalism or something resembling this. In terms of additions, you’d be hard pressed to find anything better than Melissa Sheffer, our recently added Director of Housekeeping and Rooms (interview on page xx) or our most recent trail addition-by-subtraction (601 to Micky on page xx). Inside you can also learn about how minimalism still includes an anything-but-austere approach to employee rewards, benefits and recognition (page xx), our approach to the role we play within the communities that support us (JJ’s pizza piece) and the families that live in those communities and, in return, support the mountain in everything we do (Suarez interview page xx). Around and about, you’ll find stories and information on our Ice Haus Indoor Ice Arena, our new Clips and Reels Indoor Climbing Center and Movie Theater, our Pumphouse Indoor Waterpark and small bits of thoughtful mica designed to glitter just enough to get your attention, without taking away from the bigger sparkle. In the end, regardless of the lens you choose to view us through, we’re still (and in some cases just) Jay Peak. Plenty of space to be yourself, whichever shape that takes, while spending time among others doing alternative versions of the same. We’re beyond thankful for the opportunity to share this special experience with you, all of you, whether you’re never-evers, long timers, skiers, splashers, sippers or skaters. What you see when you look at us is oftentimes, and thankfully we think, a sharp reflection of yourselves. And in the end we’re us, because you’re you. We think that’s pretty great. We hope you like this year’s magazine and we’re looking forward to delivering a vacation you’ll never forget. Thanks for reading. Steve

Even If you’ve taken more than a cursory-glance at this year’s Jay Peak Magazine cover, it’s unlikely you’re making the connection between Jay Peak and the power of alchemy. But we that overthink these things, the creating of magazine covers and themes and colors and such, still have a job to do. To tie together disparate pieces of a winter vacation and package them in such a way, creatively, that doesn’t feel templated, or dispassionate or boring as, in reality, we check off exactly none of those boxes here at Jay. But alchemy and the process of change, of transmuting, and ultimately transformation, seems to fit us in a way that, well, fits. And, equally fitting, is that as we sit here almost 10 years from the start of a growth process that would take us from then to now, from not much to just enough in a million different ways, we’re still putting out a magazine that tries to be equal parts vacation planner and contract; something that binds us to you in ways that only the collective understands. If alchemy is always connecting to the mysterious, the unaccounted for, or the inexplicable, then Jay Peak seems to be its perfect forever-home. And that alchemic power may start with turning something into something else, but it continues, and ultimately finishes, with you. The guest. The Jay Peaker. The final arbiter of what sort of change works and what sort of change needs to, still, be changed. Our buildings and waterparks and ice rinks have exactly zero bits of alchemic possibility in their DNA, but the folks that use them, and enjoy them and tell us where we can be better, do. That’s why colors and pictures and themes about alchemy are great and fine but the real power to change and transform isn’t something that we at the mountain have any access to. That power, that responsibility, sits with you, and we hope and expect that you’ll still hold us as accountable as you ever have, for the experience we all hold so close. No one holds that responsibility any tighter than our employees and it’s one of the reasons we put them on display, front and center, in our Hotel Jay. Hit page 12 to see the who and the what. Our employees work hard at delivering uniquely great experiences here at the mountain but they also contribute to our community in meaningful ways as well—check out what makes ski instructor Mimi Magyar go on page 11 Our local community takes great pride in who we are and who we continue to become and that’s evident in our story about Nelson and his Big Jay Tavern and how quickly it’s transformed the local food an social scene on page 22. And if there’s a birthing point for change and transformation and alchemy, you’d have to look wide and far for a better example than our Raised Jay 8-Week Program. Take a look at what we’re talking about on page 14. In between you’ll find just enough to pique your curiosity about what’s happening here, who’s responsible for it and, hopefully, how you can get involved. After all that’s what real alchemy is all about; reaching to be better than we presently are, so that everything around us becomes better in the process. We look forward to seeing you this season. -Steve

I was born and raised in Panama. My Dad worked at Fort Clayton around the time the Panama Canal Zone designation was ending. He worked in sort of a DMV for the US military. Mom was a cultural affairs ambassador for the US Embassy. I played baseball-pitched and played short. There were lots of hotels around us. I think that’s how hospitality got into my DNA. At Christmas we’d eat arroz con pollo and Panamanian Tamales (we cooked ours in plantain and bijo leaves and not corn husks like Mexican tamales), and we’d open one present that was, inevitably, pajamas. The night would end with mass (painful), then fireworks (less so). I went to school at UNLV because they had a good criminal justice program, the climate was great and I got to play softball. In that order? No. As far as getting into the hospitality business, you could worse than a criminal justice degree. First post-Running Rebel job was at The Tropicana Hotel as the Housekeeping Scheduler making $14 an hour and scheduling 250 housekeepers. It was a great foundation. Took a job as Assistant Executive Houskeeper (there was lots of assisting to do, there were 14 of us and near 5000 rooms). Being an Assistant Executive Director of Housekeeping meant you made beds. And then you helped make beds. Let me tell you, I can make a bed. I ended up at the MGM Grand as the Director of Housekeeping; one of the largest Hotels in the world. I felt a little over my head which is not an altogether bad place to be I think. I figured it out. I didn’t make beds anymore but I stayed there 3 years anyway. I care about people. And not simply so I can get what I need out of them. I think every person that has worked for me, or I’ve worked for, has stayed with me in some capacity. They leave me with something. I appreciate that. My favorite place to eat in Vegas is probably Chayo Mexican Kitchen and Tequila Bar inside the Linq. They make a Chicken Al Pastor taco with Chile Guajillo Salsa, pickled vegetables and grilled pineapple. How about that? A shot of Patron X Guillermo Del Toro Tequila too. ¼ of a glass maybe. Rod Carew was born and raised in Panama. I modeled my swing after his. He lived in Gatun inside the Canal Zone not so far from where I grew up. He still has citizenship there. He used to go to bed with a Ted Williams bat that he won in a Little League Tourney. I have no idea why I know this. Not sure what lined up to place me at Jay Peak; to place us together actually, but I feel very fortunate. It’s as special as I’ve read about. I’ve only been here a season but I can feel it. The guests and staff and management are all connected in a meaningful way but in a manner that I can’t really explain. You have to spend time here to get a sense of it. Ok, maybe half a glass.

Wisdom and Ardor It takes equal parts experienced eyes and fresh perspectives to layer Raised Jay across all of the growth and expansion we’ve seen over the past several years. Below, Steve Wright sits down with recent hire Andrew Lanoue and old-and-in-the way Gary Birchard who’s been stewing stews and steaming soups at Jay Peak for nearly 20 years. The things that distinguish them aren’t nearly as important as the things they share. Gary, Bear Birchard, is wearing his kitchen blacks and a white apron. Andrew is wearing a flannel, is holding a cup of coffee and easily.

Katherine Sims, founder and Executive Director of Vermont’s Green Mountain Farm To School Program, may not look at herself as any sort of super-woman-she, in fact doesn’t, but her efforts in bringing local food into the light here in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom is cape and tight worthy by any measure. As an Art History major in college, I had a language requirement and figured Italian was the best connection to that. I was bad at it and figured the best way to improve was to move to Italy and jump in headfirst. It was more like stomach first. Obviously, the food blew me away-certainly because of the quality-but it was more the communal aspect of it. How it brought people together. I fell in love with the process of food. Growing, gathering, preparing, eating it-the entire process was so connectively important within the culture. It had an impact on me. I don’t much care for yogurt, tapioca, cottage cheese. It’s textural and visceral. I’ll still eat them if I have to, but would rather not. Italy turned on a light for me regarding food. Vermont lit up the whole house. I had relatives who lived in southern VT and after working on a small farm in Connecticut during school, I started looking at opportunities in Vermont. NOFA sent me a list of farms and I started calling around-trying to find a spot that needed help. Luckily, the Lazors (Jack and Anne of Butterworks Farm in Westfield) needed someone. I did everything from milking cows and picking rocks to reading books and driving tractors. I wrecked a lot of shit driving tractors. I helped launch The Yale Farm Project back at school. It was an urban farm program that helped get local food into the dining halls and integrated sustainable food courses into the curriculum. It was a beta for the Green Mountain Farm To School Program (GMFTS) I created here in Vermont. I collect heirloom seed packets and vintage Pyrex dishware. This isn’t a sentence I would have expected to say when I was younger. If I was wrapped in a truth lasso, I’d be forced to tell you that I have a strong affection for peanut butter cups, Madame Secretary and Pillsbury Flaky layer biscuits. I’m fine if you don’t tell anyone that. Especially the biscuit part. I’m not sure what my super-power would be but, believe me, my outfit would be no joke. I’d have several outfits actually. Bright colors. Functional boots. Possibly an odd hat. Like a character on Soul Train with strength or x-ray vision or something. GMFTS started as just one afterschool program in northern Vermont. Now we have sustainable gardens at 25 schools and 100 different institutions buy local produce from us. Lots of superheroes made that happen. You make three really important decisions every day. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. You decide what you eat. I think you need to make good decisions. Not heroic ones, just good ones. Frosting. I like frosting too.

Lobster Cakes with Jay Peak Nordic Center Manager Meagan Robidoux Megan Robidoux is the Nordic Skiing Manager at Jay Peak. She has been a group sales person, a hiking guide, a mountain bike guide, a landscaper and waitress at several Jay Peak restaurants. She’s also a wife, a mother and someone who beams no particular affection toward creamed soups. “Actually, I don’t really ever eat them, but I probably would—like them I mean—if I did.” Forward, we get her thoughts on the development at Jay Peak, how she went from there-to-here, and learn what those on-trail call her. And then she will leave with several poked-upon Lobster Cakes which will land in the lap of her husband, Corbin; delivery yet unverified.