Strange Things in Silverton
Shaun White motioned toward the massive drum kit in the corner, handed me a set of sticks, and said, “Play those while I jam on the guitar.”
“I don’t really know how,” I admitted.
“It’s easy,” he said, giving me a quick 1-2, 1-2 crash course. Strange things tend to happen around superstars like Shaun, but I never would have guessed I’d be holding down the beat while he went berserk on his guitar.
Earlier that early December day in 2009, I stood idle as the “Flying Tomato” continually flung himself into the sky while attempting a then-new trick—a frontside double cork 1080. Blissfully unaware of the aerial aptitude needed to land such a stunt, my patrol partner and I were stationed in a high mountain basin at the foot of his secret 22-foot-tall halfpipe in Silverton, CO. If there was any sort of medical emergency, it was our duty to care for him.
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