Thank you to all the skaters that came out for one final jam at the Bolton Valley Skatepark. As someone whose role here means most of my interactions with our guests are digital – social media comments/direct messages, emails and website contact forms mostly – it’s so nice to break free from the screen and spend time with folks doing the thing they love. Yesterday I really enjoyed speaking with a spectrum of folks from coworkers/locals I didn’t realize skated to the guys from Long Island that were on a mountain bike trip but came by to skate (and to buy a bunch of raffle tickets to benefit Talent Skatepark‘s non-profit) to the local legends Justice, Ty, Mark, Joey & Eric that came through to Olivia, Linnae & Cullen from Chug Water bringing that sweet Vermont spring water in a can AND the good vibes too… and to everyone else that showed up yesterday, these last several weeks and at any point in the last five years – thanks for bringing the vibes and pumping life and community into that space. Appreciate you.
And though bittersweet on so many levels, nice to raise some funds for the fine folks at Talent Skatepark‘s non-profit, over the last few weeks and at yesterday’s event. If you’re not familiar, their indoor skatepark is adjacent to Burton headquarters on Burlington’s South End (and hopefully also soon adjacent to Higher Ground‘s new concert venue if the neighbors stop fussing at some point). And on the off chance you’re not familiar with Talent, well, it would be hard to overstate our love and appreciation for who they are and what they do. For me, I first got to know “Hannah from Talent” by legend and reputation as THE Burlington area skate mom. Some of my skater friends would wax poetic on her heroics at length. It stuck with me for years because I’d never heard any of those same friends speak about anyone with so much appreciation and respect for what she meant to their lives and livelihood. Little did I know some years later I’d quickly learn for myself what an incredible force of positivity she is in this community and beyond.
As those of you who attended the Community Forum a few weeks ago heard first hand and as we stated in our final skatepark update a few weeks ago “we hope that the tight-knit skate community will take the energy and spirit that we’ve seen in the last few weeks and rally around our friend Hannah at Talent Skatepark – she is totally committed to keeping indoor skating open and available for our community this winter and for years to come.” We are delighted to rehome the mini skate ramp and much of the lumber from other features to Talent for its next life and hope you will support them. And while you’re at it, maybe keep an eye on the Waterbury Skatepark Project as well… we’ve been delighted to support their fundraising efforts the last couple years (via our relationship with local legend Jake Blauvelt) with 4 events (2 skatepark jams and 2 banked slaloms in winter) totaling over $20,000 toward that ongoing project. And hopefully the 4th Annual Blauvelt’s Banks on March 16-17, 2024 will help us clear $30k raised toward that outdoor skate project before next summer’s skate season gets rolling.
But I digress… good times for good causes are something we know how to do. When you’re a small, independent business in Vermont, working with and for your local communities is par for the course. We are so grateful to have had the opportunity to expand our community a little through the BV Skatepark of 2018-2023. But alas, it’s time to bid adieu to the features. We hope NOT to many of the great humans that came through over the last 5 years. But if so, we get it. We just hope you’ll pay forward any appreciation for what skating means to you to the other wonderful local small businesses, municipal entities, and non-profits that keep the torch burning. They need you. And with your support, the torch will never actually burn out.
And with mixed emotions that may never fade away for me personally, it seems most appropriate to sign off with something from our GM Nathaniel here. And in true skater fashion, I poached it from an internal chat thread without his permission to share publicly and there’s potentially copyright implications, too??? Perrrrrfect… For further context here, in case you haven’t gotten to know Nathaniel, chances are you’ve shared a skate sesh with him at some point, but he’s also our head of finance and VP, a pretty wicked snowboarder, “dude that saved the bowl” 5 years ago, rad dad and well, just a great guy really…
So in the words of Nathaniel and Bob (don’t take ’em all literally, more about the vibe here if you know the song), we sign off with:
So long honey, babe
Where I’m bound, I can’t tell
Goodbye’s too good a word, babe
So I’ll just say, “Fare thee well”
I ain’t a-saying you treated me unkind
You could’ve done better* but I don’t mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time**
But don’t think twice, it’s all right
*For the record, you did great and we did the best we could
**If we could rewrite this line it would probably be something like “Thanks for making the time spent together more precious,” but don’t think that rhymes as well as what Bobo came up with there.