These details are almost entirely irrelevant to public policy or campaigning. Whether they're actually fun or not . . . well, fun is pretty subjective, isn't it?
In his more adventerous youth, Bram canoed the Mississippi River end to end (2552 miles) -- solo! As far as we can tell, he holds the record as the youngest person to cover the entire length of the river alone, which he did when he was 19.
Bram lived in Siberia for a year and a half. In fact, he was there in the summer of 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed. The Soviet Union was fine for 74 years, and then the whole thing fell apart a few months after Bram arrived. Coincidence?
The experience proved valuable when Bram took over leadership of Ben & Jerry's joint venture in Russia in 1995.
To add to the Russian theme, Bram's parents, both teachers in Maryland, bought an old farmhouse in Wardsboro in 1963 to use as a summer house, and it turned out that Vladimir Nabokov had spent two summers in that house in the late 1940s. The house has some other interesting history as well -- the oldest part was built in the 1790s by a guy called Samuel Hammond, who was a participant in the Boston Tea Party.
Bram worked as a farmhand for a year and a half on the Foster Brothers Farm in Middlebury, during which time he milked something like 100,000 cows.
Bram and his wife Genie met on I-89, in separate cars, without stopping, and without cell phones. The story is more fun to hear than to read; to hear Bram tell the story at the 2014 VPR Commentators' Dinner, whose theme was In Plain Sight, click here -- the video is less than three minutes long.
Remarkably, there are two Brams in the area, both with unusual last names that begin with "K". Your candidate is Bram Kleppner. The other one is Bram Kranichfeld, who is an Episcopalian priest and state's attorney for Franklin County, and formerly served on the Burlington City Council. If you want a great candidate for the VT legislature from the southern half of Burlington, Bram Kleppner is the one you want. If you want to bring a Franklin County criminal to justice, or get that person some spiritual guidance, Bram Kranichfeld is the best Bram for the job.
Bram often serves as spokesperson for the Amelia Earhart family and manages Amelia's trademarks because . . . Amelia was his grandmother's sister. In fact, Bram's mom Amy, at age 93, may be the last person alive who personally knew AE.