The 19th annual U.S. Open for snowboarding at Stratton Mountain last week literally blew the lid off my tape recorder. Watching the world’s best riders and the glitzy television coverage had nothing to do with it. What got my gizmo unhinged was an encounter with the “Junkyard.”... Read more

Strangely, there’s no heavy wooden club sitting next to my breakfast companion in the booth, and he isn’t dressed in scraps of animal fur. The two of us are eating at the Oasis Diner in Burlington, but at least this morning, Andy the Barbarian looks perfectly normal. His tales of doing battle alongside shadowknights and deadly confrontations with giants make it clear that we spend our respective weekends with very different crowds.... Read more