A Canadian Affair

It was a beautiful mild Canadian summer in 1984. The weather was scorched, and the temperatures were moderately warm for the environment. I found myself standing in the Spokane Airport terminal. I sat waiting for one of my company’s local sales representatives to accompany me on a journey into the interior of British Columbia. I had been assigned to travel up there and inspect the construction design requirements for several large buildings that were shipped to a Canadian company for the purpose of building a shake mill. Shakes shingles were very popular in the sixties through the mid-nineties, especially in cold climates. They were made of split wood mostly pine and cedar and were extremely durable. They were used by the millions on houses during this era. My company would issue a warranty to the building owners once the buildings were constructed to specifications in design. It was my job to see that the buildings conformed to those specifications. The local sales rep thought it wise to accompany me and do some public relations work while I was in the area. So this is how I found myself sitting in the terminal that day.

I had never met the sales rep, so I was not sure what I was in for. After a considerable wait, a man approached me and presented his credentials with a business card from my company. I thought a simple hello and introduction would have been fine, but as I was to find out his style was very different from the average guy. After we had exchanged names, this fellow turned and said, "Follow me" with a blunt posture that made me think he was up to something. Dennis, as he was called, marched through the terminal and out to the car rentals without speaking a word. When we got out to the Budget line, he told the counter girl that he had reserved a car and that we would be traveling to Canada and returning in 4 days. She started to process the necessary paperwork. As she was doing this, she asked if we wanted the additional insurance that was available in addition to the standard. Dennis was quick with his reply and told her he was not interested. As we walked out of the car rental office and out to the yard, I was not expecting what I was about to witness. An enormous car of immense proportions slowly pulled up with a young man behind the wheel. He stopped in front of us and got out and handed the keys to Dennis. As he did this, he wiped the windshield with a rag and polished the front lights and bumper. The whole time he was humming a tune and looked like he was in love with the car in front of us.

Now this farm boy had seen a few muscle cars back in the sixties, and my father had owned a large Oldsmobile that I took for my first date, but I had never seen anything like this beast. It was a Lincoln town car, and it had everything you could imagine installed on it including a sunroof. It was, at least, a half a block long or so I thought. It had a bright shiny silver metallic finish. Dennis just stood there examining the prized rental like he had just been given the keys to the kingdom. I stood there with more questions than answers. I had traveled all over the United States and Canada working for the same company as Dennis and my work budget didn’t allow for anything even close to this money drainer. How he managed this rental is a question unanswered to this very day. As I looked the car over, I asked him why we needed such a large car for just the two of us. The answer I received took over an hour to digest fully as we loaded our bags and proceeded out of the airport terminal.

It appeared that Dennis was given this assignment by the head sales manager back in Spanish Fork, Utah. His wedding anniversary was that day, and he was in hot water with the other half. His wife was so upset that she had decided to fly out to Wisconsin to see her sister for the week. This left Dennis in a sour mood, and that explained his actions earlier in the terminal. If he were going to the wilderness of British Columbia on his anniversary, then it would be first class all the way. Of course, I didn’t complain one bit. The car was everything you could imagine back in 1984. It drove so quietly and smooth that I could hardly stay awake as we made a beeline for the Canadian border. Dennis sat there musing and driving just like he had the boss’s prize horse saddled under him. The border came and went, and the Mounties were real congenial that day. We stated our business, and they welcomed us with smiles and open arms.

As we drove along the Canadian forest, I was sleeping part of the time with the smooth ride. Several times I opened my eyes and thought the forest flora was passing by at an incredible rate of speed. On one of these occasions I happened to look at the odometer and I came straight up in my seat and told Dennis to slow down. We were traveling over ninety miles an hour. He would slow down at my request and then as conversation and time allowed he would work the speed back up to the point that I started grabbing the dash and reminding him of his speed. I offered to drive, but that request was wasted words. He wasn’t about to let me deprive him of one second behind the wheel of this prize. So this was the order of the day I would tell him to slow down, and he would comply only to inch back up to an alarming rate of speed, and we would rehearse the whole scene again. On several occasions, deer would cross the road, and we would sail past them like they didn’t exist. The forests of British Columbia along the way to Kamloops Lake are thicker than anything you've ever seen. If you walked ten feet off the side of the road into the forest and looked back, you couldn’t see the road or our vehicle. Thousands of critters lived in there, and they all used the road a thoroughfare. I kept reminding Dennis of this very fact, but it didn’t seem to matter. He was caught up in the grandeur of the whole trip from the car to the beautiful surroundings that we were immersed in.

Finally, we came in sight of Kamloops Lake; we stopped several times for me to get some pictures and read about the famous lake monster that resides there. Each time we would get back in the car I would find Dennis speeding again and remind him of the fact. Finally, I got upset about the whole affair and let him have a piece of my mind. After some threatening words out of my mouth, I think he got the idea. I would not tolerate his behavior any longer, and that harm to his person might be inflicted if he persisted in this venue further. From that point on our trip seemed to be more enjoyable for both parties. The trip would take us well north of the lake and into a set of several small communities that had been settled by Russian immigrants. These people were very clannish, and it took several attempts to find enough information as to the location of the shake mill. You would have thought we were spies or something asking for information. We decided to get rooms for the next several nights because I felt like it would take me, at least, two days to see if the buildings were erected properly. These buildings were enormous and over eighty feet tall, and I would need to rent special equipment to access the roof areas. We finally found a motel that would accommodate us and I lined up the rentals for my work. Dennis, on the other hand, went about his sales work, and we coordinated our movements with each other for the first day or so it seemed. He dropped me off at the mill and said he would come for me around five in the evening.

The mill was run by a Russian man, and most of the employees were locals. The mill employed nearly one hundred workers, and mountains of piles of shakes were everywhere. The first thing you noticed as you came into the town was the smell of cut lumber. I liked the smell and over at the mill it was real strong. As I entered the small lumber office, there were two people sitting at small desks. One was an older woman, and the other was a young man. I introduced myself and presented my business card. The first thing the woman said was that they were expecting me and that I was a week late. I didn’t know what she was talking about, but she was to the point of being rude. I could tell from her accent that she was Russian and didn’t care for Americans all the much. After some haggling with her, that was getting nowhere, I turned to the young man and asked for his help. He told me to follow him outside. When we closed the door to the office, he turned to me and said that I had come at a bad time and that his boss which was the man that owned the mill was incapacitated and could not see me, but that he was expecting me a week ago. I informed him that my company had made arrangements for me to be there on that day and any other timing involved had not been confirmed. The young man was a Canadian and was very cordial. He asked if I wanted something to drink and I said soda would be okay. He walked me to the lunch room and said he would explain things to me. Apparently, the mill was ran and operated by a single family, and the owner was having trouble with the local province for obtaining premature permits for his new buildings that had been constructed. The way the Russians did things up there was not necessarily the way the Canadian government would like them to proceed. They had constructed all four buildings without getting the approval from the government to start. The buildings were finished, and the mill was operating when the magistrate shut them down temporarily. This was only the beginning of the troubles for the mill owner. The young man handed me a newspaper and said that this would further explain the reason for the sour mood in town.

Apparently shutting down the mill affected the town’s population so much that the whole town came to a standstill. Then there was the other story in the newspaper glaring at me as I read with interest. A young married Russian girl had been in an abusive marriage. The Russians up there are hard working, hard drinking people that love their vodka. The young girl’s husband had beaten her real bad in a drunken rage, and she nearly died from her beating. As the story goes after she healed up, she resolved never to submit to that kind of abuse again and upon the next drunken route, she took matters into her hands and with a good Louisville Slugger she beat her better half nearly to his death. Now the local constable only saw the thing as one-sided, and she was placed in jail awaiting trial from a wig that had to come from Saskatchewan. On the day of the trial the local women rallied around

The story gets even better when the front page of the newspaper I was holding in my hand shows several women with signs, but one older sagging woman stands out from all the rest. She is front and center, and all of her aging privacies are in vivid detail for the reader to ponder. If this weren't the worst of all insults for the privacy of marriage, then only one would have to imagine something worse, because she was the wife of the mill owner. Now in that little town of 650 people and nearly one-fifth employed by the mill owner you can imagine his disgrace. His wife buck naked sixty some odd years and full frontal for the cameraman. Every bar and eating establishment in town carried the story. Every place the mill owner went he was laughed at and made a joke of. This was the situation the day I showed up at the mill. It's no wonder he was incapacitated in the back room drunk on a pile of wood shavings. Come to find out, the magistrate wig released the young Russian girl, and the whole affair was put behind the courts. The news finally died down, and the mill opened for business three days after we left town. Later that day, I was able to meet with the owner and in a hungover mood, he thanked me and said to me, "God bless Ronald Reagan and General Motors for making the Buick." He was a likable fellow and somehow I felt sad for him and his situation.

Back at the motel, Dennis suggested we make a night of it and get some good eats at the local café. On the menu was a dish called Rocky Mountain oysters. I was familiar with them and declined for obvious reasons but Dennis being a city boy was infatuated with the idea of an oyster from the Rocky Mountain streams. I watched as he plowed through six of these little lamb morsels until he couldn’t hold any more of the fried spheres. Upon leaving the café, I told him that he had just partaken of a great delicacy that was revered around the West as king’s table fare. When I let him in on the secret, he had a dumbfounded look on his face and while I sat out in the car he ventured back into the establishment for the truth to the horror. He came out white as a ghost and said he was going to be sick. I said something to the tune of castrated sheep nuts thrown in a dirty bucket at the local corral and then shipped to the café where they are fried up for some poor fellow’s enjoyment, and that put him over the top. We didn’t know it, but this was just the tip of the iceberg as far as Dennis’s emotional state was concerned. It would take a turn for the worse on the long trip back to the good old USA.

On the day we left the sun was shining, and the forest was full of animals and life. I noticed an increased amount of deer foraging in and around the highway as we traveled. Along the lake the water was calm, and I remember having my eyes glued to it in hopes of catching a glimpse of the famous lake monster. I was engulfed in this escapade when I happen to glance at the odometer. It was over 90 miles an hour, and I sternly told Dennis to “SLOW DOWN!” In fact, I raised my voice loud enough to get the point across and threatened to drive the rest of the way if he did not comply. He slowed down and realized his mistake, and we carried off into a conversation about work and other things. About twenty miles south of the lake the forest was the thickest point of our trip, and the foliage was so dense that you could not see anything on the side of the road beyond ten feet. I had just dozed off and come back to my senses when I noticed the odometer climbing again over 80. I was just about to open my mouth for the final time when I saw three deer off my side of the road about fifty yards beyond our travel. I didn’t have time to speak when we were into the crossing deer. Dennis quickly realized that he was not in control of the situation. I put my hand on the dash and ducked my head down as the impact of the deer along my side of the car careened past my window. Then I heard that all familiar thumping sound of something hitting metal.

We slammed to a stop and seen that we had just hit a deer on my side of the car. I tried to open my door to inspect the damage, but it was bashed in. I climbed out the driver’s side and when I got to the passenger side of the car I stood there like Dennis in aww of the cars condition. The deer had crossed over into the promised land partially of his accord, and some of the blame went to the carelessness of the driver of the iron beast. All in all the deer had made a statement that he was not happy with the sudden parting of this life. His impact on the car started with the right front fender and went the entire length of the passenger side. Both doors were caved in one window shattered, and the edge of the hood was damaged. If I had not witnessed this as being a true event, I could not have envisioned that a small Black-tailed deer could have totaled the side of that great Lincoln. We just stood there dumbfounded as what to do next. Finally, I got out my camera and began taking pictures of the scene. I suspected that the rental agency would have a hard time believing a deer made that much damage.

I was in the process of taking pictures when a 1953 red Chevrolet truck in perfect condition pulled up on the other side of the road. I was taken back at the state of the vehicle when a redheaded bearded man, his redheaded wife and three redheaded young boys climbed out the truck and approached us. I’ll never forget the first words out of the man’s mouth as he came alongside the car. “Had a bit of a wreck did ya eh? It looks like ya bagged a good one there but that cars a waste. Are ya gonna claim him eh?” Dennis in all his shock just stood there with a sick look on his face. Finally, he looked at me and asked what the man was saying. I talked to the man and his family, and they wanted to know if we were claiming the deer. I laughed and said that the deer was mangled beyond claim and that we were from the United States on our way home when we hit the deer. The man informed me that there was a Canadian law at that time which allowed you to take the harvest of an animal if he was hit and killed on the road. He pulled out some tag and asked Dennis to sign it, and that would allow him to take possession of the animal if we didn’t want it. Dennis just stood there in shock until I explained the situation to him again. He finally signed the document and the family dove upon that deer with knives and ropes. Within several minutes, they were loaded up and traveling down the road in the opposite direction we were heading. They thanked us as they drove away.

With enough pictures of the scene, I was satisfied that I could show the rental agency that indeed a deer had made this mess. We piled into the driver’s side door and proceeded cautiously down the road. We went from lightning driving speed along the Kamloops Lake 500 Raceway before the accident to a mere 50 miles an hour maximum, and that was an understatement. Dennis cruised along with that old familiar sick look on his face all the way to the Mountie shake at the border. This is where the story starts to get good. The look on the Mounties face nearly bust my gut. He called out to his fellow peers, and they all gathered around in amazement at the big silver beast from America with half the side plowed in, deer hair, and blood stains thrown in along for a pinstriping effect. They were laughing so hard they couldn’t control themselves. We were asked to pull over to a special holding area and we went inside the Mountie shed to tell our story. They took Dennis into another part of the building while I sat there and looked at Canadian pamphlets for over an hour. Finally, Dennis came out and with a quick smirk on his face and said, "Let's go."  When we got across the border, he gunned the car and said he hoped he never saw Canada again. I asked why and he told me that he had to pay some tariff revenue for not being a Canadian but harvesting one of her Majesty’s precious resources. The fine was $185.00 and back in those days it was nearly a week’s salary. He moaned and mumbled all the way to Spokane that day and I never really heard much of what he was mumbling.

Our return trip to the car rental agency would take us to the SeaTac Airport and from there Dennis would drive his car home, and I would fly back to Salt Lake. Dennis lived about 180 miles from Seattle, so he had flown to Spokane and met me there earlier in the week. To save on flight fares, we had decided to drive to the Seattle-Tacoma airport and return the car there. The trip to Seattle, for the most part, was uneventful, and I knew Dennis didn’t want to face the car rental people that awaited him. When we pulled into the return rental agency, I got my first look at how this car would be received. A black fellow that was standing in front of us and directing the parking of the return rentals just stood and stared like he was looking at a ghost. He just froze like he didn’t know what to do. For the longest time, the parking attendant looked at the side of the car and then finally let out with a yell to some other attendants nearby. Within minutes the whole area filled up with people wearing Budget Rental Car shirts and hats, they even brought out the counter girls to have a look at this one. The manager coolly walked up to Dennis and demanded to know what had happened. Dennis started with the story, the paperwork from the Mounties and the pictures we had developed on the way back. The manager just shook his head and said that the car was kind of like a pet to all the employees. It was usually rented for special affairs by very important people that wanted to put a fancy impression on people they drove around in it. He couldn’t believe that a couple of rednecks could take such a beautiful piece of an automobile and try and thin out the Canadian deer population in one fail swoop. I remember him just shaking his head back and forth as the details emerged from Dennis. Well, to add insult to injury Dennis had failed to purchase the additional insurance. This ended up costing him dearly in the end. Our company refused to cover the loss based on his stupidity of not getting the insurance and when the whole story was told and how fast he was going Dennis just faded off into oblivion.

Every story has an ending, and this one is no different. After the bath we took at the hands of the Rental boys, we marched out to an area that we could catch a shuttle to where Dennis had his car parked. I had another day of business before I flew out, so Dennis was going to drop me off at a nearby motel, and then he would drive home, and I would fly home the next night. When we pulled up to his car, we were in an underground parking terminal. As we found his car, I was amazed at the beautiful Cadillac sitting there. It was nearly new and looked like a rich man’s ride. It was then that I noticed Dennis had a flair for the big cars. That’s why he had rented the big silver, Lincoln; he was used to the finer luxury cars. I walked around to the passenger side and waited for the door to unlock so I could put in my briefcase and luggage in the trunk. I heard mumbling and groaning from Dennis, so I looked up across the car and asked what the problem was. Apparently in all his haste to make his flight he had left the car keys in his raincoat and the raincoat in the trunk. From the look on his face, this was not going good, and he looked like he might wig out on me. I asked if we might get a police officer down there and use one of their jimmies to unlock the car. This was the only thing Dennis could think of. His wife was still in Wisconsin upset with him, and his house with another set of keys was two hours away, so he walked over to the shuttle station and in an hour or so a young meter maid came to the rescue. The maid carried the usual Jimmy, but Cadillac had other ideas. They had installed a device that prevented the Jimmy from locking onto the door locking rod. We stood there for another hour trying to get it to unlock. Dennis, out of desperation, just sat down on the curb and gave up all hope. The meter maid and I just looked at each other and were not sure what to say. Finally, I had one of those great ideas that come along and save the day. But when I presented it to Dennis he looked like he had a bad case of gastritis. My suggestion to break the side back window went down like a five-day old fish sandwich. I could see the tears wailing up in Dennis’s eyes. Come to find out this was his wife’s car. She worked for her father and used it for real estate sales and hauling prospective people around to look over houses on the market. He couldn’t bear the thought of bashing in the side window to reach the trunk button and end our miserable situation. It took him another half hour to finally make up his mind to do the deed. Then he asked what he could use to break the window. I suggested using the meter maids baton. She said that she couldn’t allow us to do this but after some convincing and whining on Dennis’s part she finally produced the club.

This is where Murphy’s Law comes into the picture. If there is something in a good plan that can go wrong, it will. Dennis walked up to the slanted window and with several practicing attempts and suggestions from the meter maid he swung with one full motion and hit the ground quicker than the swing itself. The baton had ricocheted off the slanted glass window and hit him square in the eyebrow. The blow nearly knocked him out and put him down faster than Mike Tyson could have done back in the day. As he came up, the meter maid had her arms out helping him to his feet. The blood poured out of the wound just under the brow. It was a good six-stitcher I was told later by Dennis’s manager when I got back to Utah. He had made his play, and the window won. To end the story, I wrapped a blanket around my arm that the meter maid had in her car and put the baton through the window ending our miserable trip.

Later I got a ride from a shuttle bus over to my motel. The last time I ever saw Dennis he was sitting in the meter maid’s car with a mouse on his eye the size of Texas heading for the emergency ward of the nearby hospital. If lessons are to be learned from this episode in life, you should never reach out and pull the ring in the bull’s nose with more than twenty feet between you and the corral gate because you will surely get the horn.

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