we moved to the house that where scary actually is of course back in one thousand nine hundred sixty when we moved here we moved here in the in september of one nine hundred sixty and it was kind of a dream my dad had that he wanted to find a house in the country he was working as an engineer at general electric and we lived in south burlington at the time he had a dream that he kind of wanted to buy a house in the country that had a hill with the right exposure and to put a rotel in the backyard because he had four kids my sister marilyn myself my brother bob and my sister lindy and we had all started racing by then so so he wanted to he knew he was a good athlete himself and he knew that what he wanted to do in order to do the best that you can it wasn't enough just to ski on weekends and that's basically what we were doing was just skiing on weekends so given it a good athlete he was good football players good baseball player he actually played semi professional baseball and and he just  he knew that conditioning was important he also knew that that practicing was important so we we moved to richmond they found the house and interesting enough when my dad was going to school that you v m and driving back and forth on route two going right through richmond he would look over as as he passed through the village of richmond he'd look over to that little bowl and he just dreamt that he'd actually follow through with that dream and go ahead in and buy the land eventually and and build on it i remember going and looking at houses that wasn't my first choice because there was a house that was there a couple other houses that i really liked one was a house and underhill center but i did definitely didn't have much of a hill with it and it  also definitely did not have the right exposure but what it did have that was that i found pretty interesting was it had a barn and in the barn there was a horse so i thought that would be pretty cool to have a buy a house with a horse  t there was another mother house that i really liked and in i believe again it was underhill or might have been jericho and it was like an old farmhouse old cape cod style and i just had those really wide  boards and i just kind of fell in love with that i remember that the floors weren't even level they were kind of you know like i'm sure they they were warped in but i thought it was so cool it just seemed like it was an old old house that would be kind of fun to to grow up there but again that one didn't really fit the bill so mom and dad ended up buying the house in richmond which i am so thankful that they did that and we moved there in the mid middle of september in one thousand nine hundred sixty when we moved there we were actually living in south burlington and mom would transport us from from south burlington to here so that we could go to school at the elementary school here in richmond probably wasn't quite kosher because we do on the property and in richmond at that point so for about two weeks we're probably i was in the fourth grade which is now where the post office is and there was a field between the school and this building this was actually our gym and also was  the a cafeteria downstairs and there actually was a house that was on the road that i remember one of the classmates lived in the house so it's changed a lot since the one nine hundred sixty it's really but it's been a great town to grow up in so nineteen one hundred sixty in the fall that i was working at general electric they bought the house and closed on it mid september sometime and he got right to work it's like i don't remember exactly what that property look like because i'm pretty sure that even though it was an old farmhouse that had been lived in for a while i remember when we went and looked at that place that no one had lived there like all summer i think it was a developer maybe had bought the the house and wanted to fix it up and then and then sell it which is what happened but nobody mowed the lawn all summer long so i remember going in and walking through this this a to get up to the porch it was really deep deep grass you know it was like a field this seemed like but i also remember that when we moved in it wasn't long before dad had started to figure out where the trails are going to be and where where the roto is going to go and so he started clearing the land we'd go out he'd go off to work in the morning he'd come back and after we got home from school had dinner and then and then he would would go right out and start cutting down trees and and figuring out how he's going to build this roped oh and we would go out and help him a lot we would go in and did a lot of brush clearing i remember brother was the first one up the rope though much to my older sisters to spray she felt she was the all that she really should be the first one to go up but i know my brother better to it and  and so i believe it was in february of one nine hundred sixty one that dad had cleared cleared the hill and put up this rope to go with some sort of like i don't know if it was a ford engine from a tractor or what it was but i think some sort of tractor was the engine that he had and he was an engineer so he knew how to use the pulleys in and what he had to do to put it up  it was like this magical playground that became for us and it was it was something that you know i guess it's been quite a while so i don't remember exactly if we if you put up lights on the back of the house that first year or if we were just skiing more during daylight hours because we also were proud of the smugglers not speak up and we trained up a smug sin and also raced out of smog so we we did do both but when we finally use the hill for a lot of training what happened was that dad had put lights on the back of the the house and then i also like one or two poles i think on the hill so that we could ski at night so twice a week to see him thursday nights what would happen is that we'd get home from school sit sit down and do our homework we'd get to have dinner and then about six o'clock or so we'd had out onto the the hill we turn the lights on and start up the roto and then a lot of our friends would come and train with us it was like it was  awesome when my sister lindy the youngest one was a freshman in high school she decided that she'd rather play basketball so so she told us that one was ok with it  like the rest of us are going you're going to tell dad that you can play basketball and and which she did and dad was a master was psychology he just wasn't true that wasn't his training but he was like masterful and how he handled a lot of situations and this being one of them and what happened was that lindy would still go out and ski with us but she just was going to train she was going to race and and so one night she dad dad noticed that she would go out and she can go on the trail it was like out and around a little bit and so one night you went out before we got out there and he said a little course over where she would do her free skiing and then we had our curse that we kind of went over the steeper part of the hill and so we're risking we were training and dad watched lindy and lindy get over to where she would just do a little free skiing and and then saw the course and just stopped and took a look at it and then she started running it and after that it brought her right back into the fold where she was going to ski racer again but you know he accepted that that was her choice she didn't want to be a ski racer at that point and but he i don't think he was convinced that she didn't want to be that so so we all went on to be on the olympic team nine hundred seventy two marilyn and i made the olympic team nine hundred seventy six when he made the olympic team and and i think that i mean it's had a huge impact on our family so  anyway so kind of that the history of this area again i don't remember exactly when the timeframe was because it was pretty early on when we actually moved here and got the roto belt and but i know the p t a it was called the p t a back then went to my mom and asked my mom if she would run an after school program to teach kids how to ski and so she put that together she she recruited even if they didn't ski and gave him a little instruction and what they had to do and  so it surely became this magical playground for all of us and i think for a lot of kids that were in in this in richmond grew up in richmond where there was no lauch so when kids wanted to get warm they used my mom's kitchen or our kitchen and i do remember that one time mom had made was claude do till who grew up in richmond and the other was john wieland who lived in richmond at the time and those boys brown they smelled so good so they couldn't resist their just going to take one and they couldn't stop there so they took another one and then they actually couldn't stop until that pan was completely gone so they all of brownies and  my mom was sick and she actually was in the hospital in burlington shon wayland did come by with a pan of brownies this was like decades after he had eaten those franny's but mom was really she was she was good about just having kids come in and warm up in the kitchen it did actually ruin the kitchen floor because of the ski boots in and and because of the the wetness oh i just remember coming in at the end of skiing and the floor would be so wet and she'd just be mopping it up and trying to make do  but so that was the original lauch and i think probably my mom did have a little put a little pressure on my dad that he really needed to figure out something else for a lauch so his next attempt at a lauch was he but oh i can't remember the what kind of a check or just a truck body and and it was supposed to be you know he's going to make that for a place to just go in and i don't know if it's going to be heated or not heated or fitch is going to be the place to be able to go in but what happened with that was that it sat in the place where you where we were supposed to be able to go in and get warmed up but throughout the off season they get completely filled up with all sorts of tools and whatever whatever needed dad needed a place to store so so that didn't ever work out as the lodge so the next thing was he decided he would build a pole barn and put up  lodge so he did that and it was it was definitely very very rustic high and it did have a cement floor but it was it was a little it was a place that you could go and it is actually still standing i think we're hoping to kind of take it down in the next few years but but when you first drive into the driveway it cochran's that's a building that you'll see the parking lots here a little bit of  a bank and then you see the the old old lodge it was heated with a wood stove dad would have to get up in the middle of the night usually like any time it was cold at night which was most of the winter he would be getting up at you know two o'clock in the morning or so oh and go over and either when he was relying on would he make sure the fire was still going but when sometimes he used like a kerosene heater but it wouldn't last that long so you'd have to get up and go over and make sure that that kept going well while it was really cold at night because he did he fit in two bathrooms you know one for the girls one for the boys and again that was like it wasn't a lecture arius at all but i don't know is there anybody there that was bad did ski there during those years you know what i'm talking about right yeah so but it was fun it was a lot of fun and  then in the late sixty's and in the mid seventy's that was the time that the four of us and especially the three older ones were on the u s ski team so during that time i mean the parents really kept it going but in one thousand seventy four dad was actually coaching the u s ski team he was the alpine director for the u s ski team so he was gone a lot and my mum ended up running the the ski area getting it ready to go in and and actually running it and in one thousand seventy four i think it was really tough on or i think it was very stressful because one of the things that happened was that the five of us my dad and my my siblings were all in europe competing and my mom had hired one of my classmates to actually help her clean the house and lisa was upstairs and in one of the bedrooms vacuuming and mom was downstairs in the kitchen cleaning up and and she heard on the radio that there was an american family five members of an american family that had died in a plane crash in italy we weren't in italy so if she'd been really you know not shocked by the news she would have known it was in us but she immediately knew that she had just lost her whole family and so she she really she had a breakdown and dr ryan actually called my dad in germany and and told him that my mom and dad break down and he really needed to come home so that was like a really tough time for our family it was you know in with that breakdown  it really lasted you know just coming home and and really trying to deal with somebody that that has gone through a nervous breakdown and and is it was we didn't know what to do it was really difficult and but you know she survived over the years you know things got better and that was the last year that that i raced my older sister raced and my brother turned pro at that point so i think we were around more and i think that made it a little bit easier as well but and then my dad my dad only coached the ski team that one year so he was back around as well and some time along in there and i'm not really sure when that was but we we started  putting in a rope to go up above where the ski area really is now i do remember that when we first moved there and dad like the hill that was where the ski area is now so he and went and remember him coming down some trees getting ready to you know china to build the trails but this man came up to him and said mr cochran do you realize this isn't your land ted because that was silly and like right where the a lot the new lodge is and the trails it's like where the mighty mite is that was where he was going to start by putting in a lift there at first so this was when he first wanted to expand i think but within a few years that land came up for sale and mom and dad purchased that land so th was the mighty mite that's where beginner hill is and that might be my it's like a rope toe but it's a cable lift and it has handles on it which is a lot easier to ride it's not easy easy but it's a lot easier to ride then the rope as the roto was you know had i think it really had a lot of benefits for us because for one thing was surface laughs you're constantly on the ground you're so you're never in the air like a chair left is so you're constantly adjusting and really getting the feel of what the skis are doing on the snow and i think that was really beneficial to us as ski racers to to get that fine touch the other thing that was great was that our muscles in our arms got really strong and my youngest sister when she was about eleven and twelve years old they would have she would race in what was called the northern vermont council and when she was racing in northern vermont council i don't know if she would challenge other kids or if other kids started challenging her but she became northern from one council arm wrestling champion and i swear is because of all the writing that that she did  luxury to get something that you don't have to hold onto or you know squeeze that rope to get up to the top but not see any any comments or or questions anything that you'd like to know yes she you know that's a really good question because she went to you v m that's where she met my dad and the story that that she tells about meeting my dad is that she wanted to go skiing at stowe and so she was looking for a ride to go up to stowe and somebody said well mickey cochrane has a car and he goes that we should ask him so supposedly that's how they they met was she in a friend went to stowe so she obviously had skied before then she grew up in the windsor area hartland and so i don't know if if she learned to ski at mount a scotney i'm guessing that probably that could have been a place or maybe just in the backyard i don't know she grew up on farms so you know one of the my regrets is that i didn't talk to my parents before they passed away to find out the answers to questions like these and you know i just i heard we did hear lots of stories but i don't know all of them so yeah but so she did notice they had a ski before she went to uganda and and and actually i don't even really know how my dad learned to ski either i think that he probably it was probably something that that he did you know in somebody's on somebody's scale some place he grew up in manchester new hampshire and then went to high school and  i mean you know manchester new hampshire and then went to high school and jim spared massachusetts and lived in quincy for a while so i'm not really sure i'd love to find out more about his his young age two one of the interesting things with my dad is that he was actually born gordon timothy sullivan but his dad was timothy sull and he was irish catholic my grandmother was grace e d and she was scottish protestant and the sullivans like timothy's parents were like adamantly opposed to the marriage and really didn't recognise the marriage but timothy had been married before he met my grandmother and they had had a child but his wife died in childbirth so that he had this young child and i'm guessing i  don't know i wish i knew the story but i'm guessing that timothy he had been in world war one and had been exposed to mustard gas but but when he came back he was healthy and stuff and but i think when he had neo my dad's half brother he was just a baby and i think it probably didn't take him long before he was looking for a new wife to  take care of this baby and raise the baby so anyway they got married this is all conjecture i don't know for sure but i'm just trying to make sense of it and and so they got married and they they had dad and when my dad was about a year old timothy sullivan i think it was probably develop complications from being exposed to mustard gas in world war mom went to the hospital and they did try and do a blood transfusion using her blood with his but it didn't work and i'm sure i don't know what the medical field was like at that point but i would think that that was probably something that was relatively you know new and experimental they probably didn't really know a lot about doing that and it just didn't work so so he passed away and when he passed away the  s took neil back so neil was raised by his grandparents and my dad was raised by my grandmother and when my dad was about i don't know twelve thirteen you know adolescent maybe teenager my grandmother married thomas cochran and and he was someone that adopted my dad and that's a grandfather we knew he was actually scottish he had come from scotland and started working in the boat yards and around boston when he was seventeen and we love graham for cochran he was that a scottish and just really fun memories some of the things that i found out after dad passed away was like i didn't really realize that my dad and grandpa cochran really had different ideas and  would i don't think they actually fought physically but but they would have struggles and arguments about about things like grandpa cochran really felt that my dad being in high school should really be working and doing way too much in sports and stuff my dad loves sports it's like he just grew up you know doing the pickup games and and and he was a gifted athlete he really was very talented whether it was you know whatever he picked up whether it was football baseball hockey just whatever sport he was doing he picked it up easily one of his cousins john cochran got in touch with me about i don't know ten years ago or so and had said told me that he was introducing himself because i knew him no he existed but he was introducing himself  e mail and said that he was my dad's cousin and that when dad kind of came on the scene with the cochran family that he he said john said about himself i was a good athlete but your dad was exceptional that he really he really did things easily so so a little bit of family history as well in the was a woman bobby batson that grew up in the south and i don't believe she actually didn't know how to ski so my mom tried to teach her there was no i can remember all the different different mothers but she was she would she got a group of mothers together and gave them a little clinic about what they had to do in teaching them to ski and so my mom organized the first after school program i'm not sure i think there was probably some years in there that it stopped for a while but that's one of the things that i'm not really sure about because i wasn't here much during the winters that i was ski racing so i don't know if it continued actually should probably talk to mrs b she mrs buxton would know is anybody here know if that happened or whether or not that afterschool program so anyway then when we expanded a little bit more and had the hill up above because early on it was just the hill right behind the house it was all roped just that roto and teaching kids to ski i just remember chuckie far was one of the kids in the after school program and he i don't remember him using poles or doing a snowplow coming down fast t so then then as it evolved more then rather than having mum be the you know organizing it all and getting pulling it all together then the idea arose to have a coordinator for a school and at that time richmond did the afterschool program but then other towns did as well so there there was  sure that those programs got going also dick farah was physics teacher at willesden central school and he wanted to start an afterschool program for the wilson kids and so i think that maybe the richmond program had slid for a while and really was nonexistent and then dick came in and and get the willesden program going and i think that gave impetus for a lot of other towns to get going again and including richmond but so the way it worked is that there was a coordinator for the school program and usually it was done through the yeah so it used to be parent teachers association so i think in dick's case he was the one that organized it out of his school for richmond there was somebody probably from p t a or p e or whatever it is now that organization that would organize it and then it's also  just mom would recruit mom was very good at recruiting she would she would ask different people to to do different things and and it was hard to say no to my mom so and then you know so as far as i know richmond's been on tuesdays for ever it seems like i don't know what it was when my mom did it but tuesdays it was on a friday friday afternoon that would make sense yeah then will it stand when organized it will listen came on friday afternoons so that these are good questions because i should find out the history of it all now it's run by the richmond program is run by sue and steve samara ascii they've been doing it for a lot of years i don't know how many years and some of the things that have evolved is that like this ski area gosh it's i don't know how long ten fifteen years ago maybe decided that we really cordoning after school program was a lot of work and and it was just you know the the benefit was just seeing kids learn to ski and enjoying it but we felt as a ski area that we'd like to see if we could  know reward the coordinator in a little way so so we decided that we'd give them family passes so now that every chord nater for each each school does a family pass so it's one little way that we try and  them for doing that and now we have sue and steve do richmond but they also take kids from like jericho huntington i think even e it's organization that relies on volunteers and you know as our as our society has evolved back in the sixty's a lot of mom stayed home and had time to be able to do that but then as time goes on it's gotten much more difficult now to to find the volunteers that are available that are working other jobs too to other piece of it was the racing the race training that went on and lollipop races exactly yes every sunday afternoon we've done that you know i don't know it to smugglers and then then when we were open consistently on weekends sunday afternoons one o'clock that's when we have our lollipop race and it's so we do that to this day you know that's been one of our traditions to keep up those lollipop races there are not always lollipop races sometimes there can be kiss or races fair you know i mean dick barrel used to end see who wants to run in the la leap operation we ask them what their name is what their ages and then and then they get their bed we record that and then they go to the top of the my e mail it's just usually a coin course or they have little things they call brushes now that you can kind of it's almost like you screw them into the snow or or put them into the snow so you know cones or are those little brushes that aren't too tall and and there's so many that our tradition that that will keep forever because it's a pretty special yes yes sometimes we used to do the lollipop races like back when my sister where we went to the just the mighty mite with a concourse that was quick and easy to do it that way but i know that sometimes they'll do a longer lollipop race on the longer ago and the adults yeah cause it was a big deal with the adults as well yeah that's right young raymone she wanted to make sure that we get the results into the free press the free press won't print them anymore  but you know i think i mean i think it's just part of the drive to get families here and it's part of the atmosphere i think one of the the things the mission for cochran's is that we provide affordable skiing or boarding for families of any size and so we've tried to keep our excess that the cost of skiing there very reasonable and compared to some of these other places i think it's very reasonable but i think that it all fits in with the family atmosphere you know i my kids grew up there when when i actually went through my divorce when when my kids were a year and a half and three and i would just go over and during the winter i was a school teacher and then during the weekends and school vacations i'd be teaching over there so when my kids were really  i would bring them like draco playpen and set it up in the lodge and i'd go out and teach and when i went out i just say the snack bar girl would just kind of yeah and it was just you know it kind of evolved as a playground really you know i and actually to this day there's another group of people that i've been involved that really make it much more handle the business end of it because to me it's still you know like i love the ski tots program i love the lollipop phrases i love the kids that are there the families that are there and stuff and and i'm not business oriented at all so so it's a good thing there's that other group that's really you know doing the business end of it because but i think that's what happened my dad started getting really sick at the end of the ninet like ninety seven he was we knew that he didn't have a lot of time left so there was a group of people that got together from the cochrane community that wanted to figure out a way to make sure cochran's became viable and so we could kind of explore different things but what they came up with that seemed to be the best idea was to try and make it a nonprofit so it took us a while but because the government just didn't believe that a ski area could be a nonprofit and mom said we were always a nonprofit you know they just didn't have yeah so i was in the a lympics in one thousand nine hundred seventy two along with my older sister marilyn and my younger brother bob and there was a chance that lindy could have made the olympic team too but  she ended up like she might not have made it anyway but she also broke her leg not real badly i think it was just a small bone on the outside but anyway so she she didn't make the olympics that year and but it's interesting because by nine hundred seventy one i knew like it never even dawned on me that i was wasn't on the olympic team they didn't name the olympic came around for the winter olympics there were some girls that were younger that were actually skiing better than the girls that were on the olympic team and we had a camp in aspen colorado and three girls were chosen to go over race in the world cup races before the olympics and actually so two girls got replaced and it was kind of a messy thing so after that like by one nine hundred seventy two they didn't pick the team until a lot closer to the olympics but in my mind there's like i had no question in my mind that i was on the olympic team because i was i was like one of the best skiers on the u s ski team an edge i think that that mental piece was you know it just was assumed maybe that that we would be on the olympic team and i never questioned that you know i don't even remember the actual naming of the olympic team but but one of the things that did happen in like from the spring of seventy one right through the fallen into winter was that a lot of people were asking well how do you think the u s ski team is going to do at the olympics and my response was always the same i said you know we have a lot of talent on the u s ski team i really felt that that we were capable of winning medals whether or not we would i didn't know i knew that we had the talent to be able to do that and then there are reporters a lot times when i really think the same thing i was thinking they wouldn't have especially confidence in the ski team that i did so they'd say well come on let's be realistic you know what do you think your chances are so then i would say you know i don't know if i'll win at the olympics but what i do know is i'm capable of doing that i know that i can and for me i think i know now i work with kids on how to handle the pressure of competition and one of the things i've learned in the meantime is that affirmations can be tremendous boost to really getting you to believe those kinds of things so what i was doing back then by accident was creating an affirmation for myself that i am capable of winning at the olympics and i didn't know that but i think that was part of what got me there was just yes yes yes yes it's been it's been a lesson that has helped me throughout my lifetime and and part of it like after the alleged acts i was asked to speak to different groups and stuff and i was really really shy it was a very difficult for me to to get up in a front of a group and talk to them and i knew i mean i knew i wasn't a very good speaker but what i would say to myself is that this is good practice for you you'll get better and you know and now it's like i love coming and talking to a group like this it's it's really enjoyable for me so so i've taken it in something as simple as that you know as something that i wasn't very good at all and feel like at least comfortable doing  and asked he said you know there's a family in vermont that they've had four siblings on the olympic team they've been a limp ians and this sports editor would say wow that's really interesting but  wouldn't go ahead in and say you know go ahead and you need to do this story but bob was like he really wanted to do the story of our family and so finally they they got a new edit sports  the new york times and when when they got the new editor bob went to the new editor and said you know i'd like to do this story there's a family in vermont that there's four siblings that have all been  and the editor said oh that's that's amazing you should do that story no no no don't wait there's more to it he said you know there's also there are kids that are now some of them are a racing and it's just this incredible story about how they've come out of this small little ski area in vermont that's a whole family that's done really well so anyway so a couple years ago  came and interviewed us it was a nasty nasty day it was one of those days that i think it was probably hurricane whens it seemed like it and it  when they moved here in one nine hundred sixty their father maciel a trained engineer installed a roto cut saplings for racing gates and started coaching kids from all over northern vermont came for the free lessons and the fun don't never feel that my father wanted us to be world cup race or have or ever had any idea that we would be national level racers all i remember was it was incredibly fun and i don't know how we did that but we just  going out there over time the conference became exceptional racers they say that their passion for the sport repetition and their dad's masterful coaching explain their success  hundred seventy all four siblings racing for the u s ski team and were among the best ski racers in the world barber and won the gold medal in slalom at the one nine hundred seventy two olympics in sapporo japan mom and dad did not go to the olympics or in sapporo they couldn't afford to fly over there i heard that my father i heard that he cried twice in his life when his mother died and when this one won the gold medal and that happened at about eleven o'clock at that's one of those rental ones the youngest is barber and son ryan who won two golds at the junior world championships last season the reason why we've had so much success we all love to ski we like grew up loving this i guess we've been coached well i don't know maybe it's something in the water today cochran's is a nonprofit that teaches hundreds of local school children and famil the hill is still family run and is reviewed unity resource bustling with kids just as it has been for the last fifty years my father's there's been a thing he loved to ski racing so he wanted this as a place where anybody who had any interest in ski racing could come up whether it's a world cup skier or you liam skier or the  we just went to this sports hall of fame dinner and in in her acceptance speech she did admit that she doesn't like to lose and that's very much marilyn so when she was young it was great because she was older she was a little bit bigger than the rest of us and she always beat us and she that was she was very comfortable beating us but then when i was thirteen i actually did beat her once in a lollipop race up at smuggler's when i was ten she doesn't remember that but i do and but my reaction then was like i wasn't sure if they get the timing right but i'll accept it  i was happy to get to win that race but then when i was thirteen they had something that was called the quebec american they invited some of the canadian quebec racers to come and race with us and the race was us mugs and so there was some u s racers as well as as the canadian quebec racers and and i won which was totally surprised me that i won but at that point i was starting to become a good slalom racer so from that point on marilyn and i could like sometimes she'd win sometimes i'd win and sometimes both loose  but but then as we get older when we're in the world cup circuit i really think that we subconsciously handled it by if she did well i made a mistake fell if if i did well she made a mistake or would fall i really think looking back over the result wasn't always that way but i swear that when when one of us did well the other one races together and i think that was a subconscious thing that that was how we handled competing against each other i didn't like her wrat yeah to this day i'm not sure i used to say she's never forgiven me for winning the gold medal at the olympics but i almost think that it's more that she hasn't really forgiven herself for not winning it herself world cup race there and then we came back to burlington and when i came back to burlington there was like we always try to if we could we try and get on a flight earlier than what we're supposed to and we're supposed to  fly in at a certain time sometime in march and but we marilyn was our ring leader she was always checking out like how to you know what flights there were and if we could get there earlier so she she found out that there was a flight that we could make from j f k and we'd be in burlington like the night before and so she called mom to to say that we would be coming in early and mum said you can't do that and so i think it was even like mohawk airlines it was like one of those airlines and so marilyn found that they were like having a tears but it just really meant a lot to do that and so as we came down the the three of us came down off the steps you know my mom and dad the governor and relatives cousins there and and there's a big reception and then there was a parade that of cars that that drove us back to to richmond so i didn't know you didn't have school i just wanted to say that i did bring when my mother would try and clip out that anytime there was a story about us in the newspaper she would put out the clipping and then she'd stuff it in a cardboard box and so one year when you're there are some some of my mom's friends mrs buxton and mrs whalen and i'm not sure who the others were that decided that they they took that cardboard box photographs when my parents were very very young and put them together plus it was it was for my dad it was after my dad passed away i think and did a photo album of my dad like some of his like very young years and then in high school so from the yearbook and and and so that's what the weight three ring binder is my dad actually co wrote daughter her oldest child and when jessica was two she had learned how to ski so some other parents jessica's skiing and went to lindy and said lindy can you teach us how to teach our kids going since then she she did it for quite a few years and then i took over so now i run the ski tots program there in the ski school so there's a picture i don't even know where the picture came from but it's a good picture of what that house looked like that i remember growing up there when we first bought it i know it was tan and then we changed it to a blue color now i think it's great so but anyway so you're welcome