https://vimeo.com/88862679
Everyone dies. It is a part of life just as
much as being born and living. It is human nature for people to live their
lives with success and failure. If you’re lucky you’ll know pain, love and
friendship. A very select few, on their day of reckoning, can say that they
lived life with such veracity and tenacity for their passion. It is those gems
who do not die, but become legends.
I wish that I'd known Tony for longer. He was
the kind of guy you wanted to get to know more with each time you saw him, I
included. I'd known him from youth ski racing in our hometown, Vail, back in
the day. He was the man. He was older
than me by three or four years and still treated me as an equal though most
kids that much older than me were way too cool to take the time. I didn't really
get to know him until the past few years, though.
He came out
to some concerts that my band, Tenth Mountain Division, put on which I was
surprised and excited about because I knew he didn't like bluegrass or jam
bands that much and that’s what we play. He and Blaize, my best friend’s older
brother, were hooting and hollering through one of our first shows at Moe's in
Boulder. There were only about 25 people in the place and only about half of
those people were actually listening, so their relentless cheers really meant a
lot. We were playing better because of their outrageous cries. He incessantly
yelled "Rivertrance”, a song that we didn’t even know but was one of the
only bluegrass-type songs that he knew, sarcastically between songs which was simply
hilarious. We were all on stage, in front of an audience, you know, and while
the audience is focused on us we were all focusing on him being hilarious and
we laughed. It takes a big presence to be the focus of the man on the stage.
I told
him at our set break why we named our band Tenth Mountain Division, which was
attributed to his family who discovered Vail, something which we as a band
could identify as being unique to where we were from. I told him that I
contemplated asking him if we could use it as our band name before we actually
used it, to which he replied "Dude, you don't have to ask. I actually like
this though." I couldn't believe it. Tony liked our bluegrass. Never
thought I'd hear that.
It was only just before winter break here in
Boulder at a party that were hanging out, drinking, talking, living, breathing,
I not knowing, that it would be my last time being with Tony. That party was
nothing out of the ordinary but is now engrained in my mind forever. It’s funny
how things seem unimportant as I live them and not until I reflect upon them do
they take on their significance and beauty.
If I learned anything from Tony it is this: if
it makes you happy, do it! He taught me to live every moment with passion in
your gut and take risks. Wake up in the morning and say “I’m alive and the
world is beautiful today. I will tell my friends and family that I love them
and I will do something legendary. Not because the pursuit is to be a legend,
but because being a legend is doing the little things and giving love and being
loved. That is all we have.
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