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The fun & fascinating stories of Supply Chain & Logistics.
Bryndis 0:03
Hi. My name is Bryndis Whitson, and you're listening to the Zebras to Apples podcast, the fun and fascinating stories of supply chain logistics. We have a lot of times our life takes us on unexpected twists and turns, and sometimes they lead us to flying an airplane, to flying a glider to flying a helicopter in mid air. And so that's where today's conversation on this podcast went. We ended up talking about Air Cadets and how that led into a passion and a love of flying. Please join me on this podcast episode with my friend, Brian Lewis. Thank you so much and have a wonderful day.
Brian 0:53
So when I first got started, cadets didn't get to go in at 12 years of age. And the commanding officer of 577 squadron in Grand Prairie decided that at 12 he wanted me in the program, and so I got to start in 1972 with Captain Larry Johnson, and he was a phenomenal mentor for me. Just one day he says, Well, I own my own plane. He said, Let's go fly. And I just went, Okay, let's go flying. So we took the opportunity to go up. And what Larry didn't know is that next door to me was a man who owned a 185 on floats, and he had already taken me several times to Marguerite lake to go fishing. And he says, Here, take the controls. So I had the opportunity at a very young age with this individual. Unfortunately, he's no longer alive, and so he had two daughters, but he didn't have a son, and he just kind of adopted me, and that was so unique. But he also taught me how to drive a bulldozer. It was a Terrex, uh, scraper. There was a backhoe, all of this equipment he owned. He had this construction company. And so Mr. Bonner was and so we lived on a farm right next to his farm. And our farm generally had horses, and he had cows. You learn basically the two things that Alberto runs, true. And then he had the float plane. And I managed to learn quite a bit from the float plane, and then with Captain Larry Johnson, it was okay. Here, I'll give you the controls. And he looked at me, and he said, You can fly. That was the first response. He said to me, you can fly. Oh, yeah, you know. And I said, Yeah, I've been behind the controls once in a while,
Bryndis 3:22
And that was at 12?
Brian 3:24
Yeah, that was a 12. That was with Larry. It was at 12. But with Guy Bonner, I was probably nine, the first time we went to Margarita Lake. It flew up to Margarita Lake, stood on the pontoons and went fishing. And he said, and you don't need a fishing license because you're not old enough yet. And I went, Okay, so that was the experience at that point, but with Captain Larry Johnson, so he was also the Vice Principal of the high school-
Bryndis 4:03
Okay, man of many talents, yes.
Brian 4:07
So he's my commanding officer at Air Cadets. One of the first things that transpired with the Air Cadet Program for me was that Armed Forces station Beaver Lodge always sent a bus from Beaver Lodge all the way to Grand Prairie. All you had to do is stand on the highway and they would pick you up and take you to the cadets. And then the bus returned, and the individual that actually drove the bus was also Alberta motor Association, driver trainer, you know, so everybody had multiple jobs. And then when I got into high school and I went in for the AMA program, Mike Knight was the individual. He wound up being my Alberta motor Association driver trainer.
Bryndis 5:01
Oh, of course.
Brian 5:04
So the world always got smaller, all the people that were around you and the opportunities were very unique. I mean, you got away with a lot of stuff, I mean, for driver training, you passed everything because Mike liked you, you know, that easy and and then for flying it was, you know, Larry, the only mistake that I had made with the Air Cadet Program was after about a year and a half, or, I think, I was about 14 at the time, and Captain Larry Johnson said, We got to get you signed on to train you for a pilot. And that actually fouled up my Air Cadet ability to get scholarships, because in the Air Cadet Program, you're not allowed to have a student pilot permit unless the Department of National Defense files for your student pilot permit. So that all got fouled up a little bit, but in the meantime, it was I loved cadets. They and again, being that Larry Johnson was at the school, anytime you did something wrong here to that program, he was, he was calling you to the office and giving you chores at school.
Bryndis 6:30
Oh I bet.
Brian 6:34
But I mean, yeah, it was, and I was on the drill team. We love doing the competition. When I first signed on the drill team, the 577 squadron had gone to Edmonton twice and won the top drill team at that point in time, and for the next three years, we wanted again to be one of the first squadrons in Alberta to take five in a row. And that was the drill team. That was, I mean, the first thing you learned was how to spit shine a pair of shoes and press your uniform and get yourself looking in shape.
Bryndis 7:10
And for those listening, what is a drill team?
Brian 7:12
Okay, so the drill team in our day was a silent program that you're at this time. So it was Norm Driver who was the commander of our squadron, and he would give one command, and then from that point on, you would do a dress drill that was 1231, mm. One was the command that you learned, and you would perform a pattern in the drill on the parade floor that you had to do silently. So there was no other command after that, it was formed up. And then on command, everybody had to do their pattern, and you would break down into eights, because it was a 16 team, you'd break down into eights, then you'd break down into fours, you'd break down into ones, and then you'd all come back together again in probably a four minute drill pattern. And then he would say, squad, halt. So it was the two commands that he would make. And in the four minutes, you had an entire pattern that you had to go through. And one of the things for training was so McGavin's bakery in Grande Prairie would bring in truckloads of 100 pound flour sacks. And one of the things that our drill team did is by1231, go into the truck, take a 100 pound sack of flour, bring it out and unload it at the McGavin's facility in Grande Prairie, and all 16 of us doing this, unloading the truck. There was, it was, and it was one person going, 12311231, and so you'd march in, pick up your 100 pound sack, bring it out. And so our entire team learned the timing of 1231, just unloading that truck. And we were giving a stipend or a certain amount of money from the Gavin's for our drill team alone, for any extra things that we might have needed. And it was all put away just for the bus trip, basically, from Grand Prairie to Edmonton for the competition, and that's how we paid for the stuff that we needed to do for the drill team. It was a lot of fun, yeah, you know, and the camaraderie that we had we did on the 60th anniversary. Keith Mann was the president at that time of the Air Cadet League of Canada. Yeah, so Anna and I drove Keith and Barb up to Grande Prairie for the 60th anniversary, and I got to meet all of the crew that many years later, and I think I did have my ponytail.
Bryndis 10:41
Yes, I'm sure you did.
Brian 10:44
But the funny part is, Norman driver, who was the senior warrant for my last years, or whatever it was, in cadets, he had a ponytail as well. And then his older brother was the senior Warrant Officer. Couple of years before that, Murray Driver was an anchorman for the TV station up there, so it was a good experience. I mean, going back up and then Anna's best friend, Dory Mark, she was a part of the Air Cadet Program by that point, it wound up being a very small world to find all these people.
Bryndis 11:31
Oh, I bet.
Brian 11:32
Yeah, so cadets, number one, cadets are good for you because it gives you discipline. You know, it provides you with the opportunity to understand, to shine your shoes, press your uniform and get yourself into shape. But then the other thing is that it also provides you with the opportunity of learning how to give people, I mean, in cadets, it's a command. It gives you the authority over certain people to train them, and it gives you that responsibility of understanding that you and the confidence that you can actually do that, you know. And I enjoyed it. And for me, back in those days, cadets were something a lot more. How can I say this? So if you put a cadet uniform on and showed up, you could get on a C1 30 aircraft flying anywhere in Canada, or if it wasn't, and I made a couple of mistakes, because I wound up in Germany a couple of times.
Bryndis 12:50
Of course you did!
Brian 12:52
You know. So he just, unfortunately, for Canada. The flights to Germany were for Germany, and in order to come home, you had to get on a US aircraft to get home, but they'd let you go.
Bryndis 13:05
Okay, so Okay, let's, let's repeat, how did you end up in Germany by accident?
Brian 13:11
Well, it wasn't an accident, a c1 30, and the guys wound up going to Trenton, and then at Trenton, it was, I think, Goose Bay, and then from Goose Bay, we wound up going over to Europe. And just for me, by this point in time, I did have a log book, and so I got on the plane and there was a bunk in the back of the c1 30. So, yeah, okay, a place to sleep if you had to. But then a co-pilot would turn around and say, you want to sit in this seat? And I said, you want to sign my log book. And so they say, Sure, why not just jump in here, and you'd get a little bit of stick time, and they'd sign off that you, you know. And that was the fun of just jumping a plane. In those days, for an Air Cadet, if you had your uniform on and you knew your Social Insurance Number, you got a bed on any base anywhere, just because of you they, they just gave you that opportunity. And that doesn't happen anymore.
Bryndis 14:34
No, but it's a good recruiting tool too.
Brian 14:37
You know, like, I really enjoyed that opportunity and one of the other things we did was so in Grand Prairie, we had tag day, okay, and you had these little tags that you would offer to individuals, as long as they gave you a buck or two to put in your tray. And for three years running, I wound up being the top cadet at tag day, but I was outside of the bars, and you'd get $1 when the guy went in, and you get a $20 bill when he came back. And you know you'd say to him, Well, I already tagged you. You don't have to and I know it's okay here, yeah.
Bryndis 15:31
Here you go. One more extra.
Brian 15:33
Yeah, one more extra. And so I wind up, and this is probably bad now, but I won three years in a row, and the first year they gave me a 22, a rifle for first place. And then the next year they wound up giving me a crossbow, and the final year, I wound up getting a longbow for winning, because they couldn't give you 3 22s in a row.
Bryndis 16:00
Oh, exactly. Wow. What can we give them instead?
Brian 16:07
Yeah, exactly, you know, but one year, they held an air show and they gave me the top Cadet award and for the practice run of the snowbirds. I wound up getting into one of the seats of the snowbirds.
Bryndis 16:28
How was that?
Brian 16:29
That was phenomenal. I've never had air sickness or trouble with the maneuvers and stuff so and that's what the pilot, he just asked me. He said, You get air sick? I said, No. And he said, Okay. He said, We can do whatever we want to do. And so during their practice run, where the day before the actual air show, and they go up in the airspace and figure out what they're doing, how they're doing it, and whatever it was, I just got to sit in the side seat and enjoy the ride.
Bryndis 17:03
Wow, yeah. So yeah, that's amazing.
Brian 17:08
Yeah, it was so much fun. So I always wanted to get in in the F 18 and see what that ride was.
Bryndis 17:17
Yeah, one can still dream.
Brian 17:21
Yes, one can still dream. You know, I keep asking Bob Wade, when we can go up, yeah,
Bryndis 17:29
Someday soon, I'm sure.
Brian 17:31
Yeah. Well, he said it'll probably be an F 35 now.
Bryndis 17:36
Yeah, exactly, yeah. So you went, you were in cadets, and then you went, did you volunteer for cadets?
Brian 17:44
Later we wound up going to the Okanagan, and I worked for about 20 years down in the Okanagan, and then when we came back to Alberta, I went back into the Air Cadet Program the folks that were in- so my son went into Navy League at nine years, and then into Air Cadets in about 2007, I think it was. And then Ken Nixon was the commanding officer at five two, and they needed at that time, they called us reps, where you became an individual that looked after the roles of the executive that were down there. So Pat, who was? I can't remember what role she had, but anyways, they asked me if I would be the rep for five two. So I started at five two, shortly after that, to get on the Alberta Provincial Committee. And on top of that, they asked Anna to be something at five two, and then shortly after that, both my wife and I became part of the Alberta Provincial Committee looking after the provincial side of the cadet program, but also as the reps. And it was, I was maybe three years there, and then I wound up becoming part of the rep, or I wound up being the rep for 604 squadron downtown. And then for about 10 years, I was on that up until just before COVID. But in the meantime, I volunteered as the assistant aviation director and also as the assistant public relations director for and then I wound up becoming the public relations director for the Air Cadets, and Anna wound up becoming the senior financial officer for that program.
Bryndis 20:07
So yeah, they keep you as long as you can be there.
Brian 20:10
Yeah, and I mean, Anna's still on. I went into retirement. So I retired from becoming public relations director, and it just so much easier just to work with them. We still do just about every year, I wind up being the sergeant at arms for effective speaking, which is like, what group is that? See what happens when you get old?
Bryndis 20:39
It's all good.
Brian 20:41
So and public speaking is you learn how to do a presentation in front of a crowd, and then you get the opportunity to do a topic that comes out of nowhere, and you get five minutes to talk about that topic, where you get three minutes to write down how you want to present that topic, and then you've got two minutes to present it to a whole bunch of judges and figure out where you're at. And I love that program, and I mean Ken and Pat, they basically developed that program for Alberta.
Bryndis 21:26
Very much so.
Brian 21:27
Yeah, very much so, and I don't think it's ever gotten worse. Every year it gets better and better and better as we learn to train these young people how to present themselves in the public. And I think that's a phenomenal training program for the cadets.
Bryndis 21:58
Oh, completely.
Brian 21:59
And then, of course, our gliding program for Alberta to own its own gliding field, Natoke, you know. And you get the opportunity, once a year to have the volunteers on VIP day to get out there and have the opportunity to go up in a glider, and you have a 15 year old kid who hasn't got the opportunity to get a driver's license yet. Yeah, flying you in a glider.
Bryndis 22:35
It's a neat day.
Brian 22:37
It is a neat day. You know, like to have that opportunity, and even those young men and women, because it's, it's not gender specific, you know, to have them up there and taking that opportunity, to take you for a ride, you know, and they just qualify so.
Bryndis 22:59
And just for anyone listening, can you explain what a glider is?
Brian 23:02
Okay, so a glider is an aircraft with no engine, and it has a larger wingspan so that it can stay aloft. But ultimately, there's only two ways of getting up into the airspace that you're working in, and that's by having a winch, where it's a long cable, and as the winch sucks it in real quick, the glider gets a quick launch. So average is between four or 5000 feet of cable that's run out, and it launches it up, and it sucks about 2000 feet of cable in really, really quick 17 seconds, roughly, and it gets you to 3000 feet. And at 3000 feet, the cadet pulls the lever, releases it, and away you go. Now the other way of getting up there is by a tow plane. So they hook you onto a tow plane, and it takes you 15,16 minutes, roughly after getting off the ground, and it'll get you up to about 1500 feet, because it's not a really powerful plane. It's just a small aircraft that's towing another aircraft behind it, so it only moves at about 70 miles an hour, and so all your lift is generated at 70 miles an hour, so it doesn't go into the sky very fast, right? And at 1500 feet, the cadet pulls the lever, it releases, and away you go. So for somebody that wanted a really good video on this, Rick Mercer,
Bryndis 24:54
That's right, he went on the glider.
Brian 24:59
So we had Rick Mercer probably about 13 years ago, I think it was now, and he did a really good Rick Mercer Report on the cadet program, and he's got cadets marching. And then he wound up taking the entire afternoon of our VIP day. He went up about six times, I think, to actually get the full production of the video, but they did a wonderful presentation about how the cadets flew and what Natoke was all about, yeah. So yeah, and that's gliding. It's just a plane that points its nose down and flows and flies through the air, you have to learn how to control the plane so that you get back to where you're supposed to get back to.
Bryndis 25:46
Yes, that's more that was. The next question is, how do you maneuver that so that you can get back to that?
Brian 25:54
So when you're flying, let's say we release it 1500 feet and you're probably three miles downfield from your landing area, and you're probably falling at maybe 200 feet a minute. Okay, so it continues to fall and in those three miles, you're probably doing about 60 miles an hour, so that gives you that three minutes, but your flights are probably a total of five minutes. So your first three minutes takes you downfield, and then you're you're flying right beside the runway, and then you'll turn and come into your final and if you're too high, then you've got what they call spoilers, where it'll disrupt the airflow over the top of the wing, and you can control it to slow it down, bring it down, whatever it is, but then you can slipstream with the rudder. You can turn one way or the other, and you're still moving towards but what happens in the slipstream is the plane drops a little bit faster because you're not you've canted it a little bit, and you're supposed to be over here, but you're sliding this way, so all the drag of the aircraft itself sets in, and it's causes it to come down lower, and you and you can slipstream both ways until you get to your 200 or whatever, feet above the runway. Then you straighten it right out and just bring it right down, And that's basically how you get the glider to go, exactly where you want the glider to go. The other thing with the glider is, if you find a thermal where you get over an area that's really, green, and all of the air is moving up, it'll wind up, making the glider come up because of all of that. And it's called a thermal, and it just pulls it up. The other thermals are, if you look in the sky and you see a cloud with a big black dot underneath it, park the glider underneath, and it just sucks it right up. Oh, wow. So it's, and that's, that's the movement for the glider.
Bryndis 28:30
So very cool.
Brian 28:32
It is cool, yeah. And there are more modern gliders than what we use. We have the Switzer 233, which we use. But that's because the safety of the cadets is number one, and that glider has a history of where there's very the events that we've had with that glider is always pilot error, and the rest of the history is that it can take a hard impact on the ground if you don't know what you're doing. But I don't think there's been more than two fatalities in the number since 1953.
Bryndis 29:11
Wow. That's impressive.
Brian 29:14
It's very impressive. Now there's been landings on the roofs of malls, because Cadets or whatever it was, just got out of position, but they survived. They landed on them all, but again, no fatality, the capability of the gliders. So that's why 233, but there's like with the Alberta soaring Association they've got, I've seen their gliders do 200-300 miles an hour in a downward thing. And he's done two complete loops with the glider right over the field.
Bryndis 29:57
Wow. Amazing.
Brian 29:57
And that was in a j2. Then, but and you hear him, he just whistles in, yeah, like it's making this loud whoosh, and then one loop, second loop, and then he just leveled off. And by the time he was done, he was back up to 1500 feet. And that's the Alberta soaring Association; they sometimes use the field at Natoke for competitions. Or one year they held a glider movement competition from Edmonton, I can't remember. I think it was Edmonton, Red Deer, Natoke and Lethbridge, I think that's where they ended up. And it was the same gliders went up and moved all to these fields.
Bryndis 30:50
Oh, wow.
Brian 30:51
They weren't towed. Oh, they flew.
Bryndis 30:54
Wow, from one to the next. Wow.
Brian 30:57
With the gliders, yeah, you know. So I mean, they had to be reaching heights of 15,000 feet and then gliding down to the regions that they were moving into. And then they'd land at a certain field, get towed up, start all over again, get to the height that they needed to go to, and then move to the next one. Very cool. These are, they're not the same glider that we have, right? They're like a one man specially designed aircraft that so our gliders give us a 15 to one ratio of where. So if you were at 5000 feet, you'd be able to go 12 miles, okay. Their gliders are designed so that they get 33 or 34 miles easily at 5000 feet. So they get to 15,000 feet, they're looking at a 200 mile range. So it's pretty cool. I mean, that's the technology that's come in the last 30 odd years compared to where our gliders started back in 1953 we got the same glider.
Bryndis 32:13
And do you have a glider license as well as a pilot's license?
Brian 32:18
No, I don't have either one of them anymore, okay.
Bryndis 32:21
But you did in the past, in the past for both, yeah, and so you have to, and just for everyone listening, so you have to have, and they're separate licenses, of course, because they're completely different aircrafts.
Brian 32:35
Yeah, yeah. Well, it's like, you know, you get a pilot's license, well, then you go and get a rotary license. Mm, hmm, like your dad had, yeah, so.
Bryndis 32:46
Yeah and so with flying, when you're learning to fly, versus, you know, is there any kind of tips, tricks, things that or fun moments?
Brian 32:59
Oh, yeah, there's lots of fun moments, but you're not supposed to do them.
Bryndis 33:07
Yeah? Well, that too, yeah. So the unofficial yeah.
Brian 33:13
But what would I say? The biggest thing is, as you get older and blood pressure and all that stuff comes in, you don't get that opportunity anymore. Yeah, so it gets pretty sad, and I would say any individual that is interested in flying starts with the flight simulators. Now, I would strongly suggest the flight simulators, and then when you hit like 14, or whatever it is 15 or again, start in Air Cadets. But it is a competition. Okay, those that are good are going to get the best opportunity, but it's not hard to be good. Okay, it's just a matter of understanding the dynamics of what flight is. What book would I say you start with? And then the other thing is, it depends which aircraft you're going to get trained on. Find the flight manual, like, if they're going to train you on a 152 then go to the 152 flight manual. If it's a 172 use the 172 flight manual, you know, and then you're going to understand the aircraft quite a bit more. But, I mean, it's just like any pilot in the world today, whether you're in the military or whatever it is, you wind up getting a book that thick out the plane you're about to try and fly, and that gives you the understanding of what that aircraft is. And if you can absorb it and understand it, then you're going to have the advantage of being able to fly that aircraft.
Bryndis 34:56
And what type of aircrafts did you fly?
Brian 35:00
As a kid, the 185 the 172 were probably the first two, and then Proctor and Gamble had a hangar in Grande Prairie, and they had three different aircraft at the hangar. One wasa twin engine otter that was a short take off and landing air stall aircraft. But in the middle of the floor, in the back of the plane, was a great big hole where they had a camera that they would put in there, and rolls of film that went in there, and there was a pattern you had to fly that the camera used to take stereographic images of the forest. Very cool. Yeah, it was really cool. And the pilot at Grand Prairie was a he'd been in Vietnam and Korea, and he had his pilot's license for that aircraft, a helicopter, and it was a Ross Learjet, 25, those were the three aircrafts. And as a young kid at the airport, I used to sweep out the hangar to get, you know, just sweep the floors. And then he said, Let's go flying. And so the Twin Otter was the first one that I got the opportunity to fly in. And then he'd phone you Saturday morning, what are you doing? Nothing? And he'd say, okay, get down to the airport. We're gonna go and fly the Twin Otter and take a pattern down south. So you'd go south of Grande Prairie, and you'd be taking all of these pictures of the forest. And what transpired from that one is at Procter and Gamble in Grande Prairie, they had a lab to develop all the film. Oh, yeah, they would Yeah, and it was probably 20 feet wide and 100 feet long. And so all of the rolls of film would be offloaded from the plane into the lab down at Procter and Gamble and then developed. And they would have these 36 by 36 images that were stereographic. So you had these, it had legs on the bottom of it, and you'd look through it, and you could see 3d the entire forest. So they could scale, yeah, forest of where they wanted to. And that's what you were doing when you were taking pictures of the forest for Procter and Gamble at that time.
Bryndis 37:46
That's really cool.
Brian 37:48
It was cool, but I got flight time. It was so much fun. And then one day he flew the helicopter into the air. He actually flew the helicopter into the hangar and landed on the trolley, and I was sweeping it all out. And it helped quite a bit that I had it just about done.
Bryndis 38:12
Thank goodness!
Brian 38:14
But it all blew into the corner, so I just had to sweep the corners out. And he said, Tomorrow I'm taking the helicopter up. Do you want to learn to fly a helicopter? I went, sure. Why not? So he took me up in the and it was a bell jet Ranger 206, and he took me about 40 miles south to Grand Prairie. And he says to me, you want to learn to fly this? I said, Sure. Why not? He says, Okay, this is how this works. And he showed me how the cyclic worked and how the controls work. And he says, but here's your first lesson. And he reached over and he shut the helicopter off.
Bryndis 38:51
Oh, my God, yep. Ah, that sounds like a helicopter pilot.
Brian 38:57
And he said, I'll tell you what, if you listen to me, will survive. So he said, push the cyclic all the way down. So we push the cyclic down. And of course, the helicopter has fallen, but the rotors, you could hear them slow down for the first part. And then when the cyclic was down, the rotors started speeding up again. You could hear, you know. And then when we got to, I think it was about somewhere around 300 feet off the ground, he goes, Okay, pull the cyclic up about a quarter. So you lift it up a quarter of an inch. And then what happens is the pitch changes on the rotors, and it now starts to produce lift. And so the helicopter starts to slow down, starts to slow down, and then at a certain point he said, just pull it all the way up now, then you just pull it all the way up, and the helicopter just, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof lands. There was a little bit of spring on the legs, but there wasn't that much. He said, See, We told you, if you listen to me, we'd survive. That was my first lesson on a 206.
Bryndis 40:10
I haven't quite heard that one, but I've heard similar ones.
Brian 40:14
That was my first lesson on and then when we got into the Ross Learjet on Friday mornings. All of the paperwork that was done from Friday to Thursday was in the Learjet and had to go to Vancouver, and he would do this trip at about six in the morning. And he said, You know what? Why don't you just come with me? And so we ran down to Vancouver at six o'clock in the morning, dropped all the paperwork and turned around and flew back to Grande Prairie, and I got back to the airport and zipped to school. I was five minutes late for my physics class, but I'd already bought coffee in Vancouver and had the receipts for that morning. And so my physics teacher, Mr. Tessar, got in. He says, You're late. I said, Yeah, I'm sorry. I just came back from Vancouver. Oh, yeah, sure, you did. I handed him the receipt! Next Friday, we did the same trip, but this time Mr. Kessler went with me.
Bryndis 41:36
Oh, my God, that's so cool.
Brian 41:38
So I wound up having the teacher go with me on the next one, because he said, You know what? If you get that opportunity, I want that opportunity. Yeah, but Mr. Chesser had his license for gondola, for the balloons. Oh, so he said, I'll take you the opportunity that with me, taking him down to Vancouver was I got the reverse opportunity going up in the gondola with him, so. And he was showing me how all the controls work and all that so, but he competed in balloon contests all the time. Anyways, those are the younger days.
Bryndis 42:18
Just a few. Yep. That's really neat, well, and it's just such a neat kind of opportunity.
Brian 42:29
Yeah, yeah. And that's, that's also why we started the trucking company, is because working with Procter and Gamble at the younger times, and then my uncle Doug, who owned, who actually owned a trucking company already at that point, said he couldn't keep a town hall truck on, so bought the town hall truck. And then, of course, I'm in the process of dating the young woman that I married. So I would, and I couldn't pull the truck on the same street that she was on, because my uncle, Doug lived right across the street from her.
Bryndis 43:10
Oh, and then they he'd really know.
Brian 43:12
Yeah, he'd really know. So, and the funny part is, I even taught her how to drive the truck. So, she enjoyed the opportunity to do that sort of stuff. So, yeah, those are the young days, you know. And then 1980 came along, and the whole world went haywire because of the oil industry, things all changed at that point. And we went down to the Okanagan, and I became a journeyman carpenter after that. You get kids and you can't fly anymore,
Bryndis 43:47
Or fly differently.
Brian 43:49
Yeah, well, you just haven't got the money anymore. Yeah, you know you gotta, you gotta survive. How do you survive? So, yeah, and that's life.
Bryndis 43:59
Exactly. But I've really, I think that's, it's been a interesting journey that I what I love about this kind of piece is you never quite know where the conversation's going to go and and I know with like, the stories that you've got, we could have gone multiple different ways, and I think this was a really great start for the conversation to you, so.
Brian 44:31
Thank you. I didn't know which direction I was going to go.
Bryndis 44:34
Who knew? Yeah, but I think it was a good way.
Brian 44:38
Unscripted.
Bryndis 44:39
Yep, and I appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Thank you for listening to this Zebras to Apples podcast episode. I hope you enjoyed the showcase of the fun and fascinating stories of supply chain logistics. If you liked this episode, I would love it if you could give it a rating and review. For more information about this topic, you can go to zebrastoapples.com or follow Zebras to Apples on the social media platform of your choosing, whether that's Instagram, Facebook, Twitter X, Blue Sky or LinkedIn. You can support the show on Patreon. Also check out the show notes below. Please join me again for another episode of Zebras to Apples. Have a wonderful day.