You've seen it. Guaranteed. The sign on Lougheed Highway saying "Thank you Larry for all the wonderful years." It is just half a block east of Shaughnessy in Port Coquitlam.
You've seen him. Guaranteed. Lougheed Highway? Midas Muffler? Now a NAPA Auto Parts?
His name is Larry O'Doherty, my uncle and the man who gave me my first real summer job. At 16, that matters. I was to work from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m. from Tuesday to Saturday with grease, oil and machines that roared and belched, and the requisite amount of dirt that any real teenager - I mean man - understands. It was a rite of passage, like summer love, driver's licenses and baseball.
The first curve ball of summer came not from my Uncle Larry but my dad.
Dad unfurled his newspaper just enough for me to see his eyes and a muffled voice: "Umm your mother and I need both cars, pretty much all summer. You're on your own, boy. Better dig out your bike."
When father-son interactions were rationalized through the sports section there was little left to be said.
"Gawd!!!!" I silently screamed. Biking to Midas Muffler from Dawes Hill? Through Riverview? Along Lougheed? I reckoned I would die from either a failed hand brake on my Kuwahara or become grill-kill for a disgruntled semi-truck driver.
But I made it alive to work and Uncle Larry greeted me, slapped me on the back, showed me where the washroom and lunchroom were, and gave me my first coffee. The summer of 1986 had begun.
Jobs were assigned. As the "lot boy," I faithfully swabbed the grease pit, organized mufflers alpha-numerically and gave exactly four love notes to the sandwich truck girl on behalf of two guys on the crew.
But I learned plenty, mainly how to deal with people. I watched Uncle Larry run his crew with laughter, with a bottom line and with the precision of a surgeon. I watched him sell, recommend and put his arm around the college kid whose car was sentenced to the junk yard.
A discussion over a bill was met with an exhaustive explanation or a polite verbal kick in the lug-nuts. He was fair but you didn't screw with Uncle Larry. Through the 40-plus-degree heat in the shop, my uncle's oil-black hair never deviated from its part and his trimmed moustache would always dance with a smile and laughter. He would clap his hands, slap you on the back and talk about whatever topic carried the day.
He was Uncle Larry, the same man whom I would see at all our family functions. He never made himself into anything else than who he was. Even when I screwed up at work...
"OK, there were four tires on this car, why can I find only three? Why is traffic screeching to a halt? Damnit!"
"I locked the Mercedes, Uncle Larry and the keys are in it."
"Customer's car is all washed Uncle Larry What sun-roof?"
He would just laugh, not quite protect me from the cat-calls from the crew (who were great to me), but tell me not to worry and quietly say, "Let's get this fixed, it'll be okay... guaranteed."
And it always was.
I worked there my whole summer, trekking up and down Dawes Hill and sporting the best damn farmer's tan this side of Lougheed Highway. My Kuwahara would lose two chains and one tire but the distances and hills travelled were nothing to the people baptism Uncle Larry exposed me to.
Thank you, Uncle Larry. You have earned your retirement.
Guaranteed.
