When I was 12, I had my first slow dance at a Bar Mitzvah in Victoria, BC. The girl stood a head taller than me, with long blond hair. The song: “November Rain” by Guns N’ Roses.

Any child of the 1980s should know this Axl Rose power ballad, but for those unfamiliar, it’s a nine-minute-long epic about heartbreak. It was a big task for a 12-year-old learning how to slow dance, but I nervously shuffled my way right through the end of that thing, Slash’s guitar solo marking my transition from childhood to adulthood. 

Coincidentally, I also started snowboarding the following winter, first strapping in with a couple of friends from that Hebrew school at the south end of Vancouver Island. And, for some reason, whenever I start thinking about a snowboard season, the opening riffs of “November Rain” run through my head…

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