When I visited the New York Stock Exchange I could not understand my guide when he declared it as the epicenter of activity in North America. Watching from behind a bulletproof plexiglass wall, I saw men in tailored suits scatter like ant farm residents and women in pressed skirts toss little slips of paper on the floor as if they were shelling peanuts in a smoky tavern. I got dizzy watching the Harvard graduates play what I consider a financial version of Dungeons and Dragons. Theoretical money is lost and gained at the ring of a bell while tycoons like Bill Gates and Martha Stewart get into fist fights over the title of Dungeon Master. To be sure, the Stock Exchange is an exciting place to spend an air conditioned hour in Manhattan, but it's nothing compared to a business operation in Carnduff, Saskatchewan, whose epicenter is smack dab in the middle of a kitchen table.
Spend one day in southeast Saskatchewan and you'll undoubtedly spot the words "Fast Trucking" embroidered in green thread on the brim of a hat or the back of a jacket. Come winter, the entire population of Carnduff puts on puffy green coats until the town appears to be overrun with Oompa-Loompas. In the sixties, when most people were getting high and listening to Jerry Garcia albums, Tony and Vi Day had already embarked on an enterprise that would later become Fast Trucking and all of its many subsidiaries. It would take at least two hands to count all of the services they provide, but among them are moving oil rigs, drilling oil wells, farming crop land and constructing leases. I would not be surprised if they were somehow involved with the Hubble space craft. Their empire now includes a magnificent fleet of trucks that stretches a half mile along the highway into town, which is overwhelming visual proof that anything can be achieved if only you put your heart and soul into it.
My parents were close friends of the Days so I spent much of my childhood at their home, which also happens to be their office. Heaps of paperwork that dictate larger financial decisions than I will ever see in my entire lifetime sit casually on the kitchen table next to cans of Coca-Cola and stray forks. A CB radio hisses regularly from atop a filing cabinet and a telephone with the longest cord I've ever seen never seems to be on the hook. The adjacent kitchen is nothing fancy, but the cupboards produce an endless supply of food and dishes, as if they had been constructed by David Copperfield. The living room boasts a big screen TV and two recliners; one for Tony and the other for honored house guests. Flanking the walls in all directions are large picture windows so that Tony and Vi can keep a close eye on their operation and fire up the coffee maker whenever visitors pull into the yard.
You'd never know Tony and Vi wielded as much power as they do because their home is infinitely cozy, the door always unlocked and the dinner table open to everyone. People come and go all day long, rarely invited but always welcomed. Their entry way often looks like a collection of shoes bound for the Salvation Army. When I lived in Los Angeles, I always had my eyes peeled for celebrities, but the closest I ever came to conversing with a star was meeting Kimmy Gibler from Full House. To think of all the time I wasted milling around Hollywood back lots when it would have been more likely to spot Tom Cruise or Catherine Zeta-Jones at Vi's kitchen table. The papers on the table are constantly being rearranged to accommodate new plates and new cutlery, while the stove top and dishwasher work tirelessly to keep up.
Ketchup is generally accepted as a condiment to be served alongside french fries, yet at the Day household it's a meal unto itself and dinner guests might find themselves asking for french fries to go with their ketchup. Bottles of Heinz are squirted onto and into pretty much anything that will stand still. Hearty scoops of macaroni and cheese are rescued from the pot, awaiting a swirly drizzle as soon as they hit the table. Bowls of creamy mushroom soup are decorated with tomato dots. And hunks of meatloaf that have already been painted red are given a second coat. Once a state of emergency was declared when a bottle that had sat upside down on the table throughout dinner would not produce a single spurt. Vi, in her infinite wisdom, came to the rescue with a can of tomato soup and a funnel. When the splattered after dinner plates hit the sink, they look an awful lot like Jackson Pollack paintings or, especially if spare ribs have been served, slabs of concrete from Nicole Brown Simpson's driveway.
If ever a hat is dropped, Vi can always be counted on to help pick it up. I don't know how she does it, but judging from her ability to make time for everything and everyone, she seems to have more hours in the day than the rest of us. Whenever I'm hiring employees and come across a resume that boasts the applicant as a master of multitasking, I think of Vi and say to myself, "wanna bet?" She is capable of most anything, including multiple conversations at once, both on the phone and the radio, whilst preparing corn for dinner, both creamed and not. She also happens to bear a striking resemblance to Bea Arthur that I honestly wondered as a child how she found the time to star in The Golden Girls, let alone Maude.
While Vi is a sure thing, Tony is more of a gambler. He and my dad would travel long distances to auction sales and come back with millions of dollars worth of flat bed trucks, gravel road graders and oil well machinery. Never one to shy away from a risk, he would put faith in his intuition and remain confident that he would see a return on his investment. The crazy part is, he was always right. As his company grew to epic proportions, his ego never did. His bold and intelligent nature never precedes him when he walks into a room; instead, one might notice his snazzy suspenders or sly grin before telling a naughty joke.
Some of my fondest memories are set within their four walls. Mom and Vi would stand together at the kitchen sink, one rinsing a plate before the other put it into the dishwasher. Dad and Tony would put the recliners to good use, cranking the handles on the side of each chair before kicking up their feet. Meanwhile, my brother and I would scavenge for decks of cards or stray jacks in every available drawer. Of course not all my memories there are tinted rose. Tony and Vi's youngest son once rolled me up in a hideaway bed and the horror of this entrapment still haunts me whenever I am asked to sleep on such a contraption. On many Friday nights my dad and Tony would huddle around the television with other big wigs in the area to watch the latest episode of Dallas. I remember being scared shitless to cross in front of these intimidating men, lest I interrupt their ongoing debate as to which one of them was J.R. Ewing and which was Clayton Farlow. Therefore, I always took the long way to the bedroom, where I would flop around on the waterbed and repeatedly watch Disney's Robin Hood from my wavy perch. Then there was the Christmas morning we spent there barely a month after my dad died. Mom was understandably distraught, so there was no time for her to shop for presents. There were many gifts under the tree with my name on them, but when I pulled away the wrapping and bows, they were filled with pictures that had been cut out of the Sears catalog. It's certainly the oddest December 25th I have on record, but I can't think of any place I would have rather been after such a loss.
My dad was not one for fatherly advice, but one hot summer day while picking rocks in the middle of a field, I began to cry helplessly in the sun until he had no choice but to open his heart to me.
"What the fuck is your problem?" he asked.
Okay, not exactly the words of Ward Cleaver, but he got his point across. Suddenly the rock became ten pounds lighter and I was able to lift it into the picker. Now when I'm faced with a dilemma that seems insurmountable, his words ring in my ear until I come up with a solution that satisfies both my limited strength and his enormous expectations. Other times, when a decision is less pressing, I take a moment and think to myself, "what would Tony do?" Once I get that sorted out, the next words in my head are undoubtedly, "how would Vi get it done?" My childhood trips to Carnduff were often under the guise of piano and figure skating lessons, but I've long since lost the ability to identify a treble cleff or land a double axel. However, the life lessons I learned from the Day household have stuck with me to this day and I'm proud to be a graduate.
I recently visited Tony and Vi at their home and was thrilled to find it preserved exactly as I had remembered. The only thing missing was a grandfather clock that I would spend hours pretending I had won on The Price is Right. Vi shoved aside a pile of bills and rolled a dining chair up to the table. Normally I sat on stack stools around the perimeter of the room so that the power players could chug coffee and discuss important business. Now I was being invited to join the ranks of men and women who had sat there before me and I was unsure if I could fill the chair.
Tony approached the table and the hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention. It was as if I was five years old all over again and I considered scampering to the entry for my shoes. "Good to see you, buddy boy," he said. Then he turned his attention to the dinner Vi had presented before him. My hairs immediately fell at ease and I slowly took a seat. As I sat in the coveted chair next to Tony for the very first time, one that had been previously occupied by my father, I instantly went from feeling like a boy to feeling like a man. We didn't say much, but that was fine with me. It was more than enough to sit beside the greatest man I've ever known as he picked up his chicken fingers and dipped them in ketchup.
Spend one day in southeast Saskatchewan and you'll undoubtedly spot the words "Fast Trucking" embroidered in green thread on the brim of a hat or the back of a jacket. Come winter, the entire population of Carnduff puts on puffy green coats until the town appears to be overrun with Oompa-Loompas. In the sixties, when most people were getting high and listening to Jerry Garcia albums, Tony and Vi Day had already embarked on an enterprise that would later become Fast Trucking and all of its many subsidiaries. It would take at least two hands to count all of the services they provide, but among them are moving oil rigs, drilling oil wells, farming crop land and constructing leases. I would not be surprised if they were somehow involved with the Hubble space craft. Their empire now includes a magnificent fleet of trucks that stretches a half mile along the highway into town, which is overwhelming visual proof that anything can be achieved if only you put your heart and soul into it.
My parents were close friends of the Days so I spent much of my childhood at their home, which also happens to be their office. Heaps of paperwork that dictate larger financial decisions than I will ever see in my entire lifetime sit casually on the kitchen table next to cans of Coca-Cola and stray forks. A CB radio hisses regularly from atop a filing cabinet and a telephone with the longest cord I've ever seen never seems to be on the hook. The adjacent kitchen is nothing fancy, but the cupboards produce an endless supply of food and dishes, as if they had been constructed by David Copperfield. The living room boasts a big screen TV and two recliners; one for Tony and the other for honored house guests. Flanking the walls in all directions are large picture windows so that Tony and Vi can keep a close eye on their operation and fire up the coffee maker whenever visitors pull into the yard.
You'd never know Tony and Vi wielded as much power as they do because their home is infinitely cozy, the door always unlocked and the dinner table open to everyone. People come and go all day long, rarely invited but always welcomed. Their entry way often looks like a collection of shoes bound for the Salvation Army. When I lived in Los Angeles, I always had my eyes peeled for celebrities, but the closest I ever came to conversing with a star was meeting Kimmy Gibler from Full House. To think of all the time I wasted milling around Hollywood back lots when it would have been more likely to spot Tom Cruise or Catherine Zeta-Jones at Vi's kitchen table. The papers on the table are constantly being rearranged to accommodate new plates and new cutlery, while the stove top and dishwasher work tirelessly to keep up.
Ketchup is generally accepted as a condiment to be served alongside french fries, yet at the Day household it's a meal unto itself and dinner guests might find themselves asking for french fries to go with their ketchup. Bottles of Heinz are squirted onto and into pretty much anything that will stand still. Hearty scoops of macaroni and cheese are rescued from the pot, awaiting a swirly drizzle as soon as they hit the table. Bowls of creamy mushroom soup are decorated with tomato dots. And hunks of meatloaf that have already been painted red are given a second coat. Once a state of emergency was declared when a bottle that had sat upside down on the table throughout dinner would not produce a single spurt. Vi, in her infinite wisdom, came to the rescue with a can of tomato soup and a funnel. When the splattered after dinner plates hit the sink, they look an awful lot like Jackson Pollack paintings or, especially if spare ribs have been served, slabs of concrete from Nicole Brown Simpson's driveway.
If ever a hat is dropped, Vi can always be counted on to help pick it up. I don't know how she does it, but judging from her ability to make time for everything and everyone, she seems to have more hours in the day than the rest of us. Whenever I'm hiring employees and come across a resume that boasts the applicant as a master of multitasking, I think of Vi and say to myself, "wanna bet?" She is capable of most anything, including multiple conversations at once, both on the phone and the radio, whilst preparing corn for dinner, both creamed and not. She also happens to bear a striking resemblance to Bea Arthur that I honestly wondered as a child how she found the time to star in The Golden Girls, let alone Maude.
While Vi is a sure thing, Tony is more of a gambler. He and my dad would travel long distances to auction sales and come back with millions of dollars worth of flat bed trucks, gravel road graders and oil well machinery. Never one to shy away from a risk, he would put faith in his intuition and remain confident that he would see a return on his investment. The crazy part is, he was always right. As his company grew to epic proportions, his ego never did. His bold and intelligent nature never precedes him when he walks into a room; instead, one might notice his snazzy suspenders or sly grin before telling a naughty joke.
Some of my fondest memories are set within their four walls. Mom and Vi would stand together at the kitchen sink, one rinsing a plate before the other put it into the dishwasher. Dad and Tony would put the recliners to good use, cranking the handles on the side of each chair before kicking up their feet. Meanwhile, my brother and I would scavenge for decks of cards or stray jacks in every available drawer. Of course not all my memories there are tinted rose. Tony and Vi's youngest son once rolled me up in a hideaway bed and the horror of this entrapment still haunts me whenever I am asked to sleep on such a contraption. On many Friday nights my dad and Tony would huddle around the television with other big wigs in the area to watch the latest episode of Dallas. I remember being scared shitless to cross in front of these intimidating men, lest I interrupt their ongoing debate as to which one of them was J.R. Ewing and which was Clayton Farlow. Therefore, I always took the long way to the bedroom, where I would flop around on the waterbed and repeatedly watch Disney's Robin Hood from my wavy perch. Then there was the Christmas morning we spent there barely a month after my dad died. Mom was understandably distraught, so there was no time for her to shop for presents. There were many gifts under the tree with my name on them, but when I pulled away the wrapping and bows, they were filled with pictures that had been cut out of the Sears catalog. It's certainly the oddest December 25th I have on record, but I can't think of any place I would have rather been after such a loss.
My dad was not one for fatherly advice, but one hot summer day while picking rocks in the middle of a field, I began to cry helplessly in the sun until he had no choice but to open his heart to me.
"What the fuck is your problem?" he asked.
Okay, not exactly the words of Ward Cleaver, but he got his point across. Suddenly the rock became ten pounds lighter and I was able to lift it into the picker. Now when I'm faced with a dilemma that seems insurmountable, his words ring in my ear until I come up with a solution that satisfies both my limited strength and his enormous expectations. Other times, when a decision is less pressing, I take a moment and think to myself, "what would Tony do?" Once I get that sorted out, the next words in my head are undoubtedly, "how would Vi get it done?" My childhood trips to Carnduff were often under the guise of piano and figure skating lessons, but I've long since lost the ability to identify a treble cleff or land a double axel. However, the life lessons I learned from the Day household have stuck with me to this day and I'm proud to be a graduate.
I recently visited Tony and Vi at their home and was thrilled to find it preserved exactly as I had remembered. The only thing missing was a grandfather clock that I would spend hours pretending I had won on The Price is Right. Vi shoved aside a pile of bills and rolled a dining chair up to the table. Normally I sat on stack stools around the perimeter of the room so that the power players could chug coffee and discuss important business. Now I was being invited to join the ranks of men and women who had sat there before me and I was unsure if I could fill the chair.
Tony approached the table and the hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention. It was as if I was five years old all over again and I considered scampering to the entry for my shoes. "Good to see you, buddy boy," he said. Then he turned his attention to the dinner Vi had presented before him. My hairs immediately fell at ease and I slowly took a seat. As I sat in the coveted chair next to Tony for the very first time, one that had been previously occupied by my father, I instantly went from feeling like a boy to feeling like a man. We didn't say much, but that was fine with me. It was more than enough to sit beside the greatest man I've ever known as he picked up his chicken fingers and dipped them in ketchup.
ABSOLUTELY PRICELESS,BRADLEY, AND RIGHT ON THE MONEY! AUNT ANITA
ReplyDeleteYou make me want to be there - in their kitchen - with ketchup and a side of "something."
ReplyDelete