Gone

The longer we live and the more we see people we know leave us a little more alone. Yesterday, Henderson “Hendy” Colley, my old friend and colleague from the “Lange days” called me to chat and told me in the process that George Bauer, the former general manager of Ski magazine and Rick Baldwin, the flamboyant U.S. distributor of Lacroix skis had recently passed away. A few days earlier, I learned that Jim Woolner, one of the partners that ran Beconta and distributed Look bindings, Nordica boots and Völkl skis in the seventies, had also left us at the age of 88. Jim was a good man and Karl Wallach, his associate played the role of “bad cop” in the partnership; I guess you must have one of these. All these folks who once were important ski industry characters are now gone and the world keeps going on without missing one single beat. This goes to say that unless someone invents or start something exceptional or has a significant impact on our civilization, there won’t be much room left for that individual in the history books…