CENTURY OLD GATHERING OF SALESMEN BUYS A LITTLE MORE TIME
Once a salesman, always a salesman. Within five minutes of meeting Ron Freckleton, I’ve already parted with the last $20 bill in my wallet, to purchase his book of memoirs.
“All the money goes to the Alzheimer’s Society,” says the youthful 83-year-old of his book entitled Our Time to Say Goodbye, his love story for his late wife Joan, who died in 2014 after a long struggle with dementia. “You’re doing something good.” I shouldn’t be surprised to be on the receiving end of a sales pitch the moment I step into the Elks Lodge & Golf Club on Thursday. As the clock approaches noon, the place is steadily filling with salesmen. By the time the turkey lunch is served, their numbers have surpassed 65.
They’re here for the annual pre-Christmas gathering of The Order of the Fourteen Old Time Salesmen of Alberta, a Calgary tradition that on this day is marking its 100th anniversary.
“Last year, we allowed women to join,” says Freckleton. “I had to steam roller a few of the older guys, but I got my way.”
While most Calgarians are unfamiliar with this fraternity, its members are more than proud of its long-held local tradition.
According to club lore, we can thank Calgary’s unpredictable weather for its formation. On a typical October day in 1916, 14 travelling salesmen sat down to dinner together at the Palliser Hotel. Legend has it that a blizzard had stranded the dinner guests.
“They enjoyed each other’s company so much, they decided to make it an annual event,” says Freckleton, an expat Brit. “I bet they would be pretty surprised to find us here today, still continuing the tradition.”
Freckleton leads me to a memorabilia-filled table, where a binder holds the original minutes of those meetings of decades past.
“For the time being, it was considered that we should limit our membership to 50,” read one note from 1917 of the club that, by the 1960s, would number more than 200.
Over the past century, the annual gathering has been held at a number of facilities across the city, the Elks Lodge & Golf Club being its home for the past few years.
“The Palliser Hotel is a little too fancy for us now,” says Freckle ton of the party that used to boast a sumptuous spread that included oysters on the half shell, brandy and the waft of cigar smoke filling the room.
Jack LaBrier remembers coming to the lunch for the first time back in 1961 as a young grain salesman for Maple Leaf Mills.
“I love the camaraderie among all the men of all ages,” says the 86-year-old. “You might see a lot of them only once a year, but I still consider them friends.”
For Earl Huson, the club has long been a place where he can shoot the breeze with fellow salesmen, most now retired.
“I remember the kids at school laughing when my daughter told them her dad sold toilet paper,” says the 76-year-old, who worked for Scott Paper for 30 years. “She said to them, ‘It may be toilet paper to you, but to my family, it’s bread and butter.”
Hugh Long remembers a time when Calgary was teeming with salesmen.
“A lot of distribution centres were located in Calgary,” says the 73-year-old, who sold crop protection products. “Now, being a salesman is a dying profession.”
Before the festivities get underway, Freckleton quietly confides that he’s going to break it to the crowd that this centennial luncheon will also be its last.
“Unless someone else steps up, this is it,” he says with a sad smile. After he gives a “that’s all” speech, though, two members step up to say they’ll keep it going.
“So,” says the man with the salesman’s gift, “now you have a nice finish to your story.”