The second year in the garage and service station business, 1956, was just plain hard work, trying to get the business off the ground.

The first year had been mainly spent in promoting our new enterprise and building up a customer base. Merritt, at this point in time, was not a very big town and steady customers had to be won the old-fashioned way with friendly and prompt service delivered with a smile, free windshield wash and tire check even with a $ 2.00 gas purchase. These efforts were carried on and even intensified in 1956.

Our little family, along with grandparents Jim and Olive, spent an eventful and happy summer at Nicola Lake.

Grandpa Jim had purchased the building, boat and a small piece of lakefront. His lifelong friend, Bill Stewart, had grown too old to participate in the glory of angling for fish and had sold Jim the boathouse and boat which was an old clinker.

There was nothing legal about the transaction; we just had squatter’s rights. The first time Randy was at the boathouse was a beautiful warm, calm, summer's day. Water at the lake's edge was as still as pee on a plate. To Randy it must have looked like more level ground. He just ran right into it before we got to him and came up wet, bewildered and unhappy.

Several years later, when he started first grade, it was found that he was in dire need of corrective lenses.

He told us later, that before he got the glasses, people's faces were just white blobs with dark spots for eyes and a mouth. His most astounding statement was, “Daddy, I can see trees on that mountain!”