The Night Before

[wc]

The Night Before
In the fall of 1970 Roll-o-flex was going have its grand presentation of its new 1971 made in Regina sleds. The day before everyone worked setting up a special display upstairs outside Mr. Padwick’s  office. We had machines mounted on stands to look like they were jumping through the air, Mannequins  dressed up in snow suits, fake snow, oil products stacked in fancy arrangements, and some survival kits on display. It was getting late into the evening and Brad, Moose  and I were left to do the final clean up. Moose was at the west end and Brad and I were at the east end of the building. I heard “Hey Moose” and looked up in time to see Brad pop off a flare out of  one of the survival kits in Moose’s direction at the other end of the building. The flare went rocketing by Moose and hit the venetian blind, which was closed, in one of the big windows. The fire ball deflected up behind the blind and ricocheted around the window, producing a spectacular light and smoke show. The flares would go at least 300 feet in the air. So when this little fire ball had gone 100 feet across the building it still had 200 feet of energy to spend  producing the light show in the window. To say the least, we stood there totally stunned  for a few minutes. This was going to be a tough one to explain. We opened all the windows in the building to get the smoke out and washed  up the window and frame. The blind had burn streaks every which  way . It was a good thing there were lots windows the same size in the building, so a blind from the parts department down stairs was exchanged for the burnt one. It took a few hours to clean it all up and get the smoke out.
The next day was a great success with everybody   impressed with  the new ”Roll-o-flex “Machines. We did have a lot comments, as to it being very strange that for how machines that had never been run could  create such a smoky smell in the building. Brad, Moose and I definitely had to agree with everybody about the smoky smell.
Wade 

[Steve]

When I was at the Arctic Cat & Skiroule dealer in the early 80's we also  had a practical joker who played a lot of pranks. One I remember is when he took a pair of vise grips and clamped them on a guys butt cheek. That fella just about jumped through the roof when they clamped shut. We all tended to work with our backs against the wall for a few days after that one.

[340tnt]

I would like to go back in time and see the display...