One of my heros died
I just found out that Roger Dragon, the man who essentially ran the Middlebury Snow Bowl ski area from 1955 to 1997 just died on May 7th; he was 69.
He was the man I interviewed and edited for "Shunpiking," a piece on Vermont life in '97. He was not really a people person, but he loved the college kids and the other locals who came to the Snow Bowl. He was always there.
And it was he who in January of '96, turned on the double chair-lift when Mike Russell, Mike Taylor, and I showed up at about 10:30 am some weekday. When we got off at the top, the lift-op at the top would call down to Roger Dragon, who would turn off the lift until we got back down the slopes. We were the only one's there. Asked Roger at the bottom, "A little slow today?"
"Yeah", he said, "Simetimes it's better like this."
There's a college owned house up near the Snowbowl, named 'Dragon's Den' on a small simple black and white sign, and although I think it's named after his family and not just Roger himself, no one knew the area better. I hope when that little sign rots or falls down, they replace it with a bigger 'Roger Dragon's Den'.