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The Candy Man & the Cop
A tale of two professionals and a chance encounter that resulted in a decade’s-long friendship — and better vision.
They met almost 30 years ago under sweet, if somewhat unusual circumstances.
Lyle was a vendor, selling fudge at the Ottawa SuperEx and Marie was a young girl attending the fair with her father. She spotted the fudge stand and, although she didn’t have enough money to make a purchase, approached the Old Fashioned Fudge booth to take a closer look and drink in the aroma.
Lyle and Marie’s father were acquaintances, so when the girl asked Lyle how she could get a piece of fudge, the two men agreed that she could work for it. Marie loved the idea and immediately picked up crumbs, swept the booth, and learned how to stir the pot as new batches of fudge were prepared. After an hour’s labour she was allowed to take home two pieces of fudge.
“It was great. I was so happy,” recalls Marie, “that my father had to take me back to ‘the Ex’ for three more days in a row.”
That chance encounter was the start of a working friendship that has endured for decades. Marie has been a part-time employee of the Old Fashioned Fudge company (which Lyle owns and operates with his wife) ever since, helping to sell confections at fairs and exhibitions across Canada, ranging from the Calgary Stampede to Christmas craft shows.
Along the way — 19 years ago, to be precise — Marie started full-time work as a Special Constable with the Ottawa Police, transporting prisoners to and from their places of incarceration to the Court House. It’s a high-intensity job that requires Marie to wear a full uniform and bullet-proof vest.
“I get into scuffles all the time,” says the 43-year-old mother of three matter-of-factly.
The pressures of her work, combined with a slew of other factors gave Marie pause to consider Laser Vision Correction. She thought about it for five years, all the while (literally) stumbling through life. As a parent of youngsters she would often get up in the middle of the night to tend to a coughing child only to be unable to read the directions on the cough syrup bottle.
“I had six pairs of glasses,” she says ruefully.
Then one day her boyfriend encouraged her to ‘have her eyes done’. The consultation at Focus Eye quickly led to a surgery date and near-perfect vision. “It’s the best thing I have ever done,” says Marie. “I should have done it years ago.”
Her enthusiasm was so infectious that when her part-time boss and full-time friend Lyle McLaren heard about her unencumbered, diamond-sharp vision, he was intrigued.
A life-long eye-glasses wearer himself, Lyle, 57, was tired of having to constantly take his glasses on and off while moving between the large vats in which he brews 150 pounds of fudge at a time (“I was forever trying to see the readings on the thermometer” while preparing a new batch of fudge) and the front-line sales side of the business.
The issue came to a head for Lyle as he sat at Scotiabank Place one evening sipping a drink between periods of an Ottawa Senator’s game. His old pal Marie came strolling along. Weeks before they had had a similar encounter: then, it wasn’t until Marie was a few feet away that she recognized Lyle. But tonight she was many meters away when she waved and called to him. Lyle was shocked. He was also sold; he figured Laser Vision Correction and Focus Eye deserved a closer look.
Within days Lyle had gone for a consultation, and within two weeks he had undergone his own Wavefront-guided Intralase SBK (Monovision) procedure. He is thrilled with the results and has, in turn, recommended LVC to friends and colleagues.
“People sometimes balk at the price but I tell them to look at all the follow-up appointments” and after-care you get. And then there’s the freedom you are afforded.
Says Lyle: “It’s worth it.”
