Having a foreign object embedded in your ear can lead to a number of interesting circumstances and the following is one of them. I was up at the World Superpipe competition last weekend and had just finished up a shoot when I met Shadow. Before I start this story, it’s important to note that I know very little about the sport of snowboarding, probably about as much as most people know about applied behavior analysis.
Shadow was a friendly face in a crowd thronging a snow boarder that had just a finished his run off the Superpipe. I actually was waiting for my husband to join me and she was apparently waiting to get a picture of this rider. We chatted and it turns out she was from New Hampshire and was such a fan of snowboarding, she even had a sharpie signature ski coat of the young rider whose mob we seemed to be apart of. Being older in years, when I heard her mention "grandmother" I assumed she was this young man’s grandmother. I thought to myself, "This is one dedicated grandmother". I was thoroughly impressed that she came all this way to watch her grandson ride. And from the reaction of mob we were apart of, he was obviously a local favorite. I offered to take a picture of her with her grandson and we made a tag team effort to get through the swarm that surrounded him. At one point I was even yelling, "Hey this is his grandma, move over!" but our efforts were too late and no match for the frenzy that the youth possessed. He disappeared up the slope for another run and we shrugged and smiled, we had made a good effort.
We continued to talk when my husband arrived and I introduced Shadow to him, "This is Shaun White’s grandmother." I was proud of myself for remembering the rider’s name, I mean there were so many. "Oh no," she replied blushing, "I’m not his grandmother." With my hearing being quite compromised I had misunderstood. She had said that she was like the grandmother of snowboarding because she had being doing it for so long, almost eighteen years in fact. At least I think that’s what she said.
Shadow was actually a librarian from New Hampshire and had been trying to get a picture of Shaun for her students, not herself. When she spoke about her school and her students, her eyes and face became animated in a away that only parent or a dedicated educator’s can. The coat, she told us, that had Shaun White’s signature was going to be auctioned off for the school. She was a huge snowboarding fan and makes sure the library has all the best and recent magazines and books on snowboarding for her students. She came out to Utah specifically for the competition. That’s dedication and passion and in my book, even better than being Shaun White’s grandmother. Later I read that Shaun happened to be one of the biggest stars in sports, a gold medalist in the Olympics, and a gold medalist for the X Games in snowboarding and skateboarding. He dominates the sport of snowboarding, a Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan of sorts, but younger and hipper. So a shout out to all the students at Brewster Academy; if you felt fortunate to have Shadow at the school before you read this story, I hope you feel even more so now.
This is Shaun.
This is Shadow.
This is me trying to get a picture of Shadow with Shaun.
This is as close as I got. 
After our efforts.
Not Shaun girls, but very cute and probably more availbale.
