Event Posters for Formation Safety & Environment

At Formation Safety and Environment, I planned a variety of appreciation dinners, coffee fundraisers, and the end-of-year Christmas feast. Below are some posters I designed to promote such events.

Act Your Age... Getting a Part-time Job

In Douglas Adam’s Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything is 42. While Adam’s himself said the number was arbitrarily chosen for its lack of significance, the characters in the book often seek the ultimate question in hopes that once it is discovered, 42 will make sense as an ultimate answer. Perhaps, as the primary protagonist Arthur Dent suggests, the question is: “How many roads must a man walk down?” For me, the ultimate question (which should bring me enlightenment and direction and make sense of this life I now reside in) has turned out to be: “How many Christmas trees are in my lot?” Of course, the answer is 42.

Let me start at the beginning of this tale. After graduating with my MA and returning from a month traveling Europe, I began to apply for jobs across the country. For over two months I applied to positions ranging from National Events Coordinator to Funeral Planner to Writer. Until, on the tenth of December, I sent out my 97th application. Hoping to hit number 100 that evening, I jumped onto kijiji where I found a variety of labour intensive work that would be easy to apply for. Thus, my 100th application was to an online ad to be a Xmas Tree Salesperson. I didn’t even attach a resume. I simply replied to the ad saying my name, the fact I had some sales experience, and that I was strong enough to lift a tree. Satisfied with my 100 applications, I went to bed wondering if I had any will left to continue my job hunt.

I woke up at 9 am the next morning to a ringing telephone. I pulled myself groggily from my bed. The man of the other end of the line and my future employer asked me three questions: 1) Did you apply to sell Christmas Trees (to which I said “Yes”), 2) Do you have sales experience (to which I answered that I had solicited donations for a non-profit), and 3) How old are you. Upon answering successfully, he told me to meet him in a gas station parking lot down the street in an hour. I wasn’t sure if I was hired, if I was going to an interview, or if I was about to be mugged, but I put on my warmest wool sweater and a hoodie and headed to Irving.

I was met by a man in a red truck, who sounded remarkably like a serious version of comedian Adam Carolla. He explained that the trees sold anywhere from $20 to $35 depending on height and quality and that wreaths were $17. A customer pulled into the lot and he gestured to her saying, “There’s your first customer.” I looked over at her, looked back at him, and suddenly realized I had a job.

I approached her, trying to be friendly, and asked if she needed any help. She looked along the rows of Christmas trees, turned to me, and asked, “Do you sell any other kinds of trees?” Only later did I realize she was asking if we had spruce or pine as opposed to the balsam firs that filled the lot. But at the time, I just stared at her blankly, imagining a Christmas tree lot filled with cactuses and palm trees, and then politely responded, “I think this is the only kind of Christmas tree we have.” In the end she bought a tree for $25 and after I’d sold two more at the same price, my employer approached me once again.

“You’re not just selling trees,” he explained. “You’re selling a franchise, and that franchise is a perfect Christmas. Some people want big fat trees and some people want little skinny trees. So the perfect tree is really subjective.”

“So I should be selling them for $30?” I asked.

“Well... yeah, if you can,” he responded. From then on I stopped offering the option to negotiate and when people asked the price of my trees I told them, “On average: $30.” For the most part it worked too. The problem was the hagglers. If someone offered $25 on any tree, it was hard for me to say no. I’m a people pleaser who hates confrontation, and nothing was worse than having to put up a fuss over $5.

Before too long (maybe a couple hours after I had started), my boss gestured for me to come over to his truck. He handed me $50 in change and the keys to his van. Just before he sped off, I asked, “Should I keep track of the number of trees I sell?”

“If you want,” he responded. And that was that. After replying to a kijiji posting the night before, I was the supervisor at my own tree lot. The job itself wasn’t bad. Then again, after spending a summer cutting fish and filling a box with their guts, a “bad job” was somewhat relative. All I really had to do was wait in the lot for customers, the majority of which knew exactly what they wanted. Once they’d made their selection, I’d take a handsaw and slice off the bottom to make a fresh cut allowing the tree to soak up more water. Then I’d load the tree into the back of their car or tie it to their roof. When they were gone, I’d grab another tree from the pile, heave it over my shoulder, and chuck it in the empty pot. After 7 hours, I’d sold nine trees, two wreaths, and two bundles of boughs.

While it felt akin to waiting at Home Depot until a truck pulled up to hire a labourer paid in cash, the job did manage to get me out of the house, talking to people, and exercising. So like anyone else who’s retired and looking for something to keep them busy, a no-brainer part time job may have been just what I needed. Sometimes the answers to life’s tough questions are complicated... and sometimes they’re just 42.

A Dollhouse Built With Love

From the April 2008 issue of the Cobequid Check Up

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In 1931, an eleven year-old Donald Mackenzie and his seven siblings faced the loss of their mother. It was during the depression and their father had already warned them that this Christmas “Santa is hard up.”

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At the local Rexall Drug Store in Oxford, NS, anyone who spent over a dollar received a raffle ticket for a dollhouse. The people in Oxford knew of the Mackenzie’s loss and many put Don’s sister Dorothy’s name into the raffle. On Christmas Eve, the owner of the Rexall Drug Store came to the Mackenzie’s door and told them they had won the dollhouse. On Christmas morning, Don and his sister, with wagon in tow, went to the store for their Christmas miracle.

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This is just the beginning of Donald Mackenzie’s story. Now 89, Don sits in the Cobequid Community Health Centre Foundation Office patiently waiting as I organize my notes and fetch additional paper from my desk. He wears a black leather jacket over a white button up sweater and a sharp red tie. Though his hair is now white, his spirits are still high and the man exudes a certain gentle energy.

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Don served in World War II. He was part of the North Nova Scotia Highlanders and was in France on D-Day. During his five years overseas, he attended the party of a group of girls. Originally the party was for wounded soldiers, but when the men got sick, the girls invited soldiers from the local YMCA and surrounding bases. At the party, he met a girl named Jean, 17. The two spoke briefly and the following day he was invited back to the house to eat supper. The couple who invited him happened to be Jean’s parents.

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At 21, a few months before the war ended, Don had a weeks leave to go to Britain. While his buddies explored the city and visited the local pubs, Don married his soul mate, Jean.

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After the war, Don returned to Canada with his war bride. He joined the RCMP as a civilian and became a Finger Print Technician. The couple lived in Dartmouth, but when their apartment was robbed, they moved to Ontario. When they retired Don asked Jean whether they should move to Florida, British Columbia, or Nova Scotia.

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He smiles as he recalls her answer. “Oh, give me Nova Scotia,” she said. At the time he thought it was a strange choice, but reflecting on it now he admits it was the right one. “You couldn’t get a friendlier place,” he says.

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If you recognize the name of Don Mackenzie it’s probably from the Chronicle Herald article that appeared in December 2007. At age 65, Don began making a dollhouse for a little girl. With Christmas three weeks away and a family too poor to buy presents, Jean knew Don would not be able to say no when she asked him to help the family out. Since this humble beginning, Don has built 36 dollhouses and sold zero. Each dollhouse has been given to a hospital, a care facility, or a child living in his neighborhood.

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Jean was the reason he built that first dollhouse. Seeing the family, Jean knew that her husband would be willing and able to grant the girl’s Christmas wish. As he continued to make the dollhouses for charities and local families, his wife would help by making curtains and offering suggestions.

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“If I built furniture too big or too small I heard about it,” Don recalls. “Sometimes I would make windows too big. I wanted to just throw them out, but she would say, ‘No, we’ll just make the next house bigger.’ She was good at that.”

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Each dollhouse is handcrafted by Don and takes three months to make though he admits that these days it takes a bit longer. When asked how he starts, he doesn’t hesitate explaining, “I just keep cutting wood.”

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On occasion Don has built dollhouses with a particular model in mind. While living in Ottawa, a young minister asked for one of Don’s dollhouses. Don replied, “If you get married, and have a daughter I’ll make you one.” Years later, when the minister had a daughter, Don already had one made based on a picture of a farmhouse that the minister grew up in.

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Jean passed away this year and is survived by the couple’s two children, two grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. Each of Don’s three great-granddaughters has her own dollhouse. He gave his latest dollhouse, his 36^th, to the Cobequid Community Health Centre to be raffled off in memory of his wife.

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This dollhouse wasn’t his first and it certainly won’t be his last. As I shake his hand, he considers the future. “I might get a few more made yet,” he says. “I think I’ll stop when I get 95 years of age.”

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He volunteers to sell tickets at Superstore as we take his picture with the farm house style doll house and as he leaves the office I can’t help but think that Don didn’t just give us a dollhouse. Don offered us a lesson in charity, love, and kindness and gave us a legacy of a war bride, her soul mate, and a town that took a little time to help a family on Christmas.