Cole biography defines one man’s road to success

AS A PRACTICAL MATTER: GALEN COLE A BIOGRAPHY, By Lowell G. Kjenstad, Furbush Roberts, 1996.

As you peruse this slim biography, you realize that there isn’t anything of any importance that Galen Cole ever attempted that he couldn’t accomplish. But I have personal knowledge of at least one minor endeavor which he never managed to completely pull off.

It was Labor Day weekend 1995. The Cole family and the Cole Land Transportation Museum were hosting the 5th Armored Division Association on the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. The 5th was Galen’s old outfit and he had been preparing for this moment since 1992. (Advance preparation is one of the keys to his success.) There was a parade with more than 5,000 participants: veterans, marching bands, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Maine Maritime Academy midshipmen. Virtually everybody in a uniform was represented.

The march started in Brewer, crossed the Veterans Remembrance Bridge on I-395, and finished up at Bass Park, where the marchers were to be fed a lunch of hot dogs and hamburgers cooked by representatives of every area service club the Cole family could find. We cooked the whole time the parade was in progress and had a mountain of food to feed the hungry marchers when they arrived at the infield at Bass Park.

The only problem was that either a significant number of the marchers weren’t hungry or they were shy. (I never thought shyness would ever come between a midshipman and a pile of hamburgers.) We had trouble giving the food away. In retrospect we should have gotten Galen on the bullhorn and had him exhort the crowd to eat more. Maybe even he couldn’t make a not-so-hungry marcher eat a second hamburger — or even the first. I don’t know what happened to the uneaten food, but I’ll bet Galen Cole saw that it wasn’t wasted and found its way into deserving hands.

That said, there is much to recommend about this book as it skips around the life of one of eastern Maine’s more prodigious achievers. Since this writer was born in New York state, there are still some significant gaps in my knowledge of local families and their history. Lowell Kjenstad, who spent several years working with Galen Cole on various enterprises, has brought the life of one local boy made good to the attention of the reader.

In his preface, Kjenstad states that the book’s purpose is “not to pedestal the man, rather to street-level him in order that non-pedestaled readers will find encouragement in their own growth and paths to success as they come to define it.” Unfortunately the author never really achieves his goal. He seems unable to “street-level” Galen Cole. It is unfortunate that the gee-whiz school of hero worship never quite lets out.

At times the organization of the chapters is troubling as well. However, it is difficult to be overly critical of a person who puts forth an honest effort especially when he admits in the first sentence of the preface that “the book is written not by a writer or author of more than a little significance … .”

If the style of the book doesn’t win awards, at least the information therein is interesting and, when retelling Galen’s wartime experiences, quite dramatic. Most of us remember the familiar orange trucks and trailers of Coles Express. Galen took over the company from his father and ran it until it was sold to Roadway Services in 1992. During that time the company never failed to turn an annual profit. This includes an 18-month period in 1982-1983 when a Teamster strike caused the company to use extraordinary measures to keep freight moving.

The less obvious side of Galen Cole which author Kjenstad enthusiastically exposes is the amount of time and wealth he has given to communities and not-for-profit organizations in this state. Look to the right off I-395 as you head east and you see the large, flat structure that houses the Cole Land Transportation Museum. Better yet, turn onto the Perry Road and go into the museum. There is all the memorial any man could want to leave in his name. It’s basically a gift from Galen Cole to us. That says a lot about the man.