Let's go back to the late 1980s.

Some can use their memory, others, imagination.

You're on a ski trip in the Rockies. It's a crisp, sunny day.

You've got a white ski bib on with neon stripes zigzagging across the breast.

And neither you nor anyone else is wearing a helmet,

so your hair is flapping in the wind

as you make graceful, predictable turns down the mountain.

After a full day of skiing, your thighs are burning,

your lips are chapped,

so you reward yourself with an ice cold Coors original

and some chicken tenders.

Life is good. Then, out of the corner of your eye,

you notice something. It's a 16-year-old kid wearing baggy clothes. He can't hear the steely

Dan playing on the patio of the restaurant because he's listening to earphones connected to a

walkman he has stored in his Jansport backpack. Instead of ski boots,

he's wearing what looked like hiking boots except bulkier. And he's holding something,

unfamiliar to you. It's not a pair of skis, but one solid board. You come to find out that what

you're looking at is called a snowboarder. And over the next few years,

these snowboarders multiply in numbers. There are hundreds of them, thousands. You and your

alpine aficionados are not happy. You feel like your civilized ski town has been invaded

by some vulgar cross between Jeff Spacoli and Evil Knievel. Not long after you first notice these

snowboarders, your ski resort bans them from the mountain, but they keep coming. And the question on

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