Contributed by Josh Fryfogle
This is a story of many local businesses, working together to do what they said can’t be done. It’s a love story.
I love working with locally-owned businesses. I’ve even acted on that love for locally-owned business, with the campaign effort ‘Vote Local’. More on that later.
This story begins with one of my favorite locally-owned businesses, Mat-Su Food Co-op. The food sector of any local economy ought to be of the utmost concern for us all, right? We all eat. What if, God forbid, something happens and they can’t get boats unloaded for some reason, and the supply chain breaks down, and all the shelves are bare? It looks like we’ve gotten a taste of that reality recently, but I digress.
I got my monthly delivery from Mat-Su Food Co-op, picking it up from my office in Wasilla this past July. I put it in my truck, and rushed home that day. I was a bit overwhelmed, because I was leaving the next morning for the airport, to travel to see my family down South. I would be gone for a week or so.
The next morning I hurried into my son’s vehicle, without considering the box of meat that was sitting in my truck, in the front passenger seat. He took me to the airport, and off I went, leaving behind a disaster in the making.
That week was an incredibly hot week in Alaska. Clear skies most of the time, near constant sunlight, and my truck was slowly but surely becoming uninhabitable. It sat in the sun, there in my driveway, while the wonderful, local meat was decomposing for days.
My son called to tell me the bad news, after opening my truck door, the day before I would return to Alaska. He called, and I could hear how bad the smell was by his gagging while talking about it. He described it as the worst smell he’d ever smelled.
The meat had putrified in the heat, and my truck smelled of death.
When I returned to Alaska and opened the door, I was overwhelmed by the smell, and then, I was overwhelmed by the summer bugs that literally swarmed me. Even with the meat removed (thanks to my son), the smell of the interior of the truck was so bad that bugs literally swarmed me, to get to whatever rot they were attracted to.
It was surreal, this stink.
After a few days of talking to people about my situation, my unscientific poll of friends and family and my various internet searches, I was not encouraged. I was told by several folks that I would need to replace the interior entirely. Ugh, I did not want to hear that. I wanted to believe that there must be a way.
My locally-owned business radar landed on Alaska Detail. I reached out to my friend Tory Rieless, a co-owner of this Palmer business, and longtime musician friend of mine. I first met him when he was in high school, and I in my twenties. He was in bands, and I was facilitating local music stages in the Mat-Su. His attention to detail, his striving for perfection, his will to succeed, all were noticeable even then. Tory was a highly motivated perfectionist. When I first heard that he had started his own auto detailing business, it just made sense. Of course he did. Knowing Tory’s will to succeed, I thought that perhaps he would be willing to try to do what the internet and others said wasn’t doable.
And when I reached out to him with a seemingly impossible task, he didn’t even hesitate.
We talked about the problem, and made an action plan. I followed several internet remedies to help absorb the stank (containers filled with vinegar, containers filled with fresh coffee grounds, Febreeze for days, ozone spray), and we let it sit for a while. This did seem to take the edge off, but it was still a toxic, terrible interior.
To give you an idea of how bad it was, I took a jacket out of the backseat, which never came into direct contact with the rotted meat. I put that single item of clothing in my laundry room, and then went to the store to get some vinegar. When I returned, my entire house reeked of that same rotten smell. I washed the jacket in the washer, on the “heavy duty” setting, over and over and over again. I eventually got the smell completely out, so I knew it was possible. But how do you do that with a truck interior?
Then, after a couple weeks of replacing the vinegar and coffee grounds, I decided to air out the vehicle. The weather had cooled as fall had arrived, the bugs had relented, and I let the breeze pass through the open doors of the vehicle every day for another few weeks.
This helped, but the truck interior still smelled of death, but with a coffee and vinegar flavor. I still gag a little, thinking about it.
Tory’s team at Alaska Detail did it right. They over did it by any normal measure. But still, the smell persisted. It wasn’t nearly as bad as before - progress was made - but I still wouldn’t have offered anyone a ride anywhere.
I took it back to Tory, who wasn’t discouraged in the slightest. He was only more determined. We decided that we needed to remove the front passenger seat and treat it separately from the rest of the problem.
Tory Rieless shared his favorite quote: “You don’t have problems, just more work to do.”
Tory reached out to another local company, Revision Truck Accessories, for help. Before, this was a story about hard work, perseverance, stick-to-it-tiveness and all that, but now our tale was about community. And isn’t that the way anything gets done? By community members working together?
Brad Kiehn, the owner of Revision Truck Accessories, was ready and willing to help. I drove over to his shop on the Palmer Wasilla Hwy, near the Four Corners intersection, and he had the tools and technical know-how to get the electrically-equipped seat out in minutes. I had a great conversation with the guy, too! I felt a sense of hope and Alaskan spirit, seeing how my truck tragedy was bringing a group of local business people together. It was truly challenging, but not insurmountable.
As I write this story today, the front passenger seat is still removed from the vehicle. We’ve decided to try one more pass through the process at Alaska Detail, but I’ve accepted the fact that, while I might need to replace that passenger seat, the rest of the interior is restored, and honestly, cleaner than it’s been for years.
But the big picture here, the moral of the story, is not about auto detailing. It’s about local people, who actually live here, Alaskans who recognize a challenge as an opportunity. It’s about neighbors and community members not giving up, by not giving up on each other.
Alaskans have a long history of overcoming the odds, and dealing with circumstances that seem impossible. It’s the Alaskan spirit that we hear so much about, driving us to make do where others don’t. Working with Tory and the team at Alaska Detail in Palmer reminded me of what that means.
My front passenger seat might be a loss, and the locally-grown meat from the Mat-Su Food Co-op, well, I’m still a little sad about the waste. But my faith in community is renewed, just like my truck interior.
Vote Local.
Check out our growing directory of locally-owned businesses, at www.VoteLocal.info