The Picnic Bench

[kootenay joe]

This is a true story, just happening now.
About 10 or more years ago i bought a real good picnic bench made by 'Sylvan' who lives about 29 miles away at the north end of Kootenay Lake. It is 8 feet long and 6 feet wide to outside edge of the benches. At the time he asked me if i wanted cedar or fir. I said cedar because to move a fir table of that size would require forks on a machine, neither of which i have. So Sylvan delivered this fine heavy large cedar picnic bench in a trailer behind some very old 4x4 pickup. That is 20 miles of driving a mostly single track road with drop offs in most places of 100 feet or more. There were 4 guys to help unload it. I asked Sylvan how much i owed him and he said "well would $125 be o.k. ?" Now i could not see $125 as even paying for the cedar lumber and he was delivering it as well ! Anyway, i paid him a fair bit more than he was asking.
All that was at least 10 years ago. I have planted quite a few deciduous trees on this piece of mountainside in the last 40 years and many are now large enough to have a picnic bench underneath. I called Sylvan about 2 weeks ago and asked if he was still making picnic benches. "Ya, sure" was his reply and i asked for 2: one big one like i have and one smaller so that i can move it for siting in 22 or crossbow. And again he asked "You want cedar or fir". Again i picked the cedar.
I will be going past Sylvan's place on Saturday so i gave him a call to say i would drop by. My intention being to pay him if the picnic tables are made.
I asked him how it was coming with the picnic benches. He said "Oh, fine. Ya, it's all good". then he went on: "You know Roger ?" to which i replied "no". "Sure" he said,"you know, the tall skinny guy, logger, been her about 20 years" Oh " so i talked to Roger. he's going to get me 2 nice big cedar trees and bring them here tomorrow. Then i'm going to make your picnic benches".
This is livin' on the edge.
kj

[KLJ77]

Great story...just goes to show that; when you treat someone fairly, they remember you and go out of their way to treat you even better, even after 10 years. Seems they want to make sure you get some really good cedar for your benches.