Fifty years ago, trip to Stans…

I still remember a trip I made fifty years ago, in March 1975 with Jean-Michel Lamy, sales director at Look. We flew from Charles de Gaulle to Zurich, Switzerland, to meet Gaston Haldemann, importer and distributor of Rossignol, Nordica, and Look in that country, and Kaspar Heutschi, his sales director. 

The meeting took place at Haldemann's offices in Stans, a small mountain town in the heart of Switzerland, in the canton of Niedwalden, an hour's drive south of Zurich. I knew the town because it was the home of the famous short-takeoff aircraft Pilatus Porter. 

Lamy, recruited from Peugeot in central France, had absolutely no idea about the ski industry and was a bit like a fish out of water, while Haldemann, who had devoted his entire life, energy, and passion to skiing, knew what he was talking about. 

An engineer by training, he was the inventor of the Rossignol Fiberglass, a hollow-core slalom ski that Adrien Duvillard had taken to America in 1963, where he scored some victories in the early days of the professional circuit. 

We had gone there to discuss the future of Look's racing program and its place within the company. Haldemann was neither impressed by the impact of ski racing on sales, nor enthralled by the way Look was run, particularly by the company's lack of innovation. 

The meeting had achieved little, but it had called into question the costly investment the company was making in its racing department. Clear-eyed, I realized that this cost would ultimately strangle the company's future, resulting in its takeover by Bernard Tapie in 1983 for one symbolic French franc.

Skiing and… falling!

This video made from videos from the 2024-2025 alpine racing ski season came to my attention and along with my wife, we managed to watch the full 24 minutes of its footage. 

That’s one reason why I decided to pass it on to you if you can stand the pain of watching excellent skiers take dismembering tumbles to keep you entertained! In addition, what I took away from this rough spectacle, is that it’s a learning lesson for all of us who ski, at any skill level, I should add. 

As for the rest of our lives’ moments, we learn significantly from our mistakes than our successes. For instance, as skiing goes, this clip shows that we all should avoid skiing too much on the inside ski, but everyone does it! 

We shouldn’t either initiate direction changes at the last fraction of second or lean too much forward. Another observation is that security fences aren’t not installed or created equally, as some still let skiers through them without slowing them down much. 

Well, in the end, I can only hope that these involuntary heroes are doing okay today, and won’t suffer too much as their bodies get older. 

Did I vote for Trump?

It appears to be so long that can’t really remember which president I voted for in 2024. I think I went for the loud candidate who promised to make America great again as I liked his red hat and his assured ways. He spoke a good game, and even as a very old guy, he looked more alive than his opponent who vaporized at the first debate. 

The loud candidate promised to eliminate illegal immigrants that were stealing our jobs and were for the most part criminals. I know, these folks were doing the work no “Anglo” would ever do, so that must be illegal! 

He also guaranteed to kill inflation, bring grocery prices back to pre-Biden levels, promised using tariffs to enrich the country and bring all manufacturing back home, balance the federal budget and cut taxes. 

He promised me miracles better than the ones expected in Lourdes, and that sounded good to me because I believe in things I like to hear, and I can see that he’s hyperactive and doing all kinds of big things all the time. 

He’s like a huge bull inside a tiny china shop, it’s full of action, it’s noisy, things fly around and it sounds just like he promised…