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A hearty feast of free readings, lectures, presentations, workshops and showcases celebrating our culture, community and the wild blue yonder.
 Where inquiring minds gather.
Okanagan Institute
at Hanna's Lounge
Click here for schedule
and information. |
Arts Council of the Central Okanagan is a resource centre and advocate for the arts in Kelowna and Central Okanagan. Find us at:
8-1304 Ellis Street
Kelowna BC V1Y 1Z8
Phone: 250.861.4123
Fax: 250.861.4155
Email: Click here
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Join the Arts Council of the Central Okanagan today and you will:
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Literary Arts
Truck Whisperer Faye Cyr
He rarely stayed a full day the last three years of highschool, if he showed up at all. He was one of those kids you'd probably label, "He Won't Amount to Much." The summer he was sixteen he worked in a West Coast logging camp with his dad driving a dump truck. The next summer he helped build a logging road, occasionally dabbling with the controls of the enormous cable excavator his dad was operating . After two attempts at grade twelve, he finally dropped out of school.
Partying and a lengthy relationship ended in a premature marriage at age twenty-two. Foreseeing a disastrous future for his son, his dad offered him a job assisting with the construction of twenty miles of logging road in an isolated logging camp called Fanny Bay, an hour and a half by water out of Campbell River. Six months later, when the road was finished, he and his twenty-year old bride remained in camp because the company wanted him to maintain all the roads.
A few months later, they said they couldn't afford a full-time maintenance worker and he was let go. Phillips Arm, a camp four times the size, in a nearby inlet could however, and he was hired to drive one of their dump trucks.
Phillips Arm gave him the opportunity to drive bigger, more complex equipment and his talent for operating anything with a steering wheel or a shift lever was quickly recognized. He graded roads for a while then was put into a mammoth front-end loader and told to load dump trucks and move things like towering fuel tanks.
A massive rockslide thundered down the mountainside dangerously close to camp one morning, shortly after the logging trucks had left for the bush. Sheepishly, they asked if he would run the excavator to unplug the jammed culvert and remove the debris so the logging trucks could come back to camp. With little experience in the machine and what he'd learned from his dad's, he teetered precariously for hours on a quivering timber bridge that could have disappeared down the bank any second.
The new love of his driving life appeared unexpectedly when a logging truck driver didn't show up for work. Piloting a towering load of fir and hemlock down a narrow winding thirty percent grade gave him a rush behind the wheel he'd never known. He was hooked instantly.
Five years of bush isolation, four-year old and two-year old sons, and his wife was desperate for civilization. They moved back to the Coquitlam area where a relative pointed him to a bus driving position with Metro Transit. A year later, he took trophies for Rookie of the Year and Third over all in a Bus Rodeo.
After two years in the lower mainland, the family had had enough 'city.' They moved to Quesnel and he returned to the bush to haul logs. For the next twenty years, he bowed to the weather and the fatigue of 12 to 15 hour days. Wanting to set a good example for his sons and graduate from highschool, he worked during the day and went to night school twice a week for six months until he'd completed grade twelve in the GED program. This accomplishment showed him that he was more academic than he thought.
But there were days when he hated driving. Times, when there had been a breakdown or a load dumped on an icy road, adding more hours to the day. Once, at the end of an especially long day, he drove away from a Petro-Can card lock with the hose still in his fuel tank. The owner screamed as she watched the attached cubicle being dragged behind his truck. Some people have such a low panic threshold.
Near the end, trucks had to go farther for a load of logs. Days were becoming routinely sixteen hours. He was exhausted and disillusioned. Throughout the years, he had enjoyed helping people get their Class One license and he decided to pursue teaching as a profession. During the three-month spring Break-up of 1999, he went to Vancouver for an instructor's license. The next Break-up, he worked for a school in Kelowna. And in 2001, he and his wife moved to Kelowna so he could work as a full-time Class One Driving Instructor.
Since then, from the passenger seat of an eighteen-wheeler, he has coached a variety of students; an airline pilot, lawyer, college professor, nightclub owner, young girls, those with a language-barrier and the disabled. He's frequently been used to "talk down" nervous students before their road test and help traumatized drivers overcome insurmountable fear after horrific accidents.
Recently, I asked him to give me a lesson or two so I could better understand the frustration of someone learning to drive a "big rig" for the book I'll soon be writing. He handed me a professional driving manual and said, "Do your homework, and I'll meet you at the truck."
He was as skilled and gentle as he looks in the TV advertisement. Within two hours, I was actually up and downshifting. I think he was as surprised as I was. To say that Don is a Truck Whisperer isn't an exaggeration. Then, I am a little biased. I've been his wife for 35 years.
We invite submissions from writers.
» The story or poem should not be over 2000 words and must be your own original work. All submissions must be word processed and emailed to us at our email address.
» Submissions must include your complete contact information: Name, Telephone, Email, Mailing Address.
» Please also include a short biography and if possible a small photo of yourself.
» The anonymity of all that submit a story or poem will be respected. Contact details supplied as part of your submission will not be disclosed to any third party.
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