Big Ski...Big Life

I said goodbye to a good friend on Monday. We lost one of Rutland's special residents last week when Bob Liscinsky passed away. He was known to all of his friends (& there were many) as "Big Ski". Though most knew Bob from his days as the owner of the Carriage Room, I always felt a bit luckier in a way because although the Carriage Room had been closed for a few years by the time I arrived in Rutland, I got to know Ski as a neighbor living just a house away for more than a dozen years. And as anyone who knew Bob can tell you, because of his gift of storytelling I was quickly brought up to speed on the Carriage Room and what it meant to be around that crowd over the years. I'm sorry in a way that I missed those days but had I not, I would've never gotten to hear those stories in the way only Big Ski could tell them.....and that was special to me. A couple of years ago he called me on the phone & asked me to drop by because he had something for me. He knew that I had a pub style room in my house and he brought me into his garage to uncover the mirrors that graced the walls behind the Carriage Room bar for so many years. Today they proudly hang in my home as a reminder of a man who led a rich & colorful life. At his funeral it was said that Big Ski left this world a better place than when he came into it. That, I have no doubt, is true. Mine was made better by knowing him. Big Ski led a Big Life. I will miss one....and thank him forever for a tiny piece of the other.