Leif was fascinated with snowboarding. He also tried skateboarding and line skating, all sports that could be extreme if one developed the skill, but snowboarding was his favorite, though he didn't get to do it very many times. This was what he wanted to do for this 15th birthday, so we went to a slope in Wisconsin, just north of where we were living at Fort Sheridan, Illinois. Peter W. skied, and I took pictures. Leif was a daredevil on the slope. Though he found out that snowboarding was a lot harder than it looked, and he took many spills, he found it thrilling and exhilarating. The cold didn't seem to bother him when we lived in the Chicago area, and he was out in it doing sports like this with glee.
From Illinois we moved to Puerto Rico for two years and he loved the tropical climate, too, finding other sports to enjoy there like SCUBA diving. However, when we moved back to Kansas in 1992, he and Peter W. went to Colorado together once to enjoy the slopes. Leif again was crazy about snowboarding while Peter W. skied.
These are the last photos I have of Leif enjoying the snow and winter sports. It's a shame that enjoyment was taken away from him when he developed the cold weather and exercise induced asthma in the army. From that time on, it was terrible for him, struggling to breathe. It must have been doubly hard for a young man who had been so active.
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