Latest / The Ric and Dan Show / "You open a second one and it just sort of brings you back to your knees": Mary Hartt of Dysart's

Transcript

"You open a second one and it just sort of brings you back to your knees": Mary Hartt of Dysart's · The Ric and Dan Show

• 0:00
  (Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Dan is being very professional because he has a Coffee Hound Coffee coffee cup and in his coffee cup is the coffee that is the official sponsor of the Rick and Dan show, Coffee Hound Coffee.
• 0:10
  Coffee Hound Coffee Company.
• 0:11
  They wander, they explore, they caffeinate, coffeehoundcoffeeco.com.
• 0:15
  I'd like to point out that I am using my Dice Hearts mug that I have.
• 0:20
  What you don't know is I stole this from Herman.
• 0:22
  Is there a statute of limitations on this?
• 0:25
  You know, Rick's the only guy I've ever seen walk out of Dysarts with two or three pancakes in his pants.
• 0:30
  It's very...
• 0:31
  And they're big pancakes.
• 0:32
  Well, fortunately, they're big pants.
• 0:35
  He's Rick Tyler.
• 0:36
  And he's Dan Cashman.
• 0:38
  And I'm Mary Dysart of Dysarts.
• 0:41
  And I'm on the Rick and Dan Show.
• 0:43
  In Maine, we often hear, you can't get there from here.
• 0:46
  These are the stories of the risk takers, the trailblazers, those who turn obstacles into opportunities every day and found their way to get there from here.
• 0:55
  And today they're on the Rick and Dan Show.
• 0:58
  You brought in a book of history of Dysarts.
• 1:01
  I think I have some of it still in my head because I got to write a song about Dysarts when Dysarts won Business of the Year for the Bangor Region Chamber of Commerce Awards.
• 1:10
  And sat at the Bangor Dysarts, looked at the history, flipped my paper menu over, borrowed a pen and wrote down, in 67 you could drive to the end of 95 and Dysarts was at the end till the state came in to say, you got to get out of the way.
• 1:29
  And then they built Dysarts in Herman.
• 1:32
  How close was I to being historically accurate?
• 1:36
  Perfect.
• 1:36
  Absolutely perfect.
• 1:37
  Write this down.
• 1:39
  One day I got to write.
• 1:40
  Was it your dad?
• 1:42
  My dad.
• 1:42
  Was in the gas station business.
• 1:44
  When he was eight years old with his father.
• 1:46
  And was at the station?
• 1:47
  At the end of 95?
• 1:48
  At the end of 95, yes.
• 1:50
  And it was displaced in 58 by the interstate and they moved to Brewer for a little while because my grandfather couldn't visualize what the interstate was going to be because that whole interstate system was new and Brewer wasn't a good move and then they moved out to Herman.
• 2:09
  There are so many things I love about Dysarts.
• 2:12
  The aforementioned pancakes being one of them, but the family business aspect of it and you hit home and it reminds me the stories I hear from my dad about his dad, my grandfather and the family businesses and how things were different then but sort of the same, but really how it came back to pride in your family and pride in the work that's being done and pride in your community.
• 2:32
  I feel like that part of it is the same.
• 2:34
  Absolutely.
• 2:35
  And my job has been taken by my niece and nephew and I said something about another company that sold out and my niece looked at me like I had two heads to think that somebody would move on, not be keeping the family business going.
• 2:52
  So I'm really proud of her for having that feeling because that was always how I felt too.
• 2:57
  Now when you mentioned those two, that's- Jordan and Emily.
• 3:00
  Jordan and Emily.
• 3:01
  Jordan I can remember because I run into Jordan in Bangor occasionally, but seldom do I get to see Emily.
• 3:06
  What's Jordan doing?
• 3:07
  Jordan is at Broadway and Emily's at Herman and you hear Emily quite often because she's one of the ones giggling in the back of the butterly flaky crust.
• 3:18
  I can't say it either.
• 3:20
  I remember them being in the room because they were two of the, were they not two of the actors?
• 3:25
  Yes.
• 3:26
  And a lot of people don't know this, Dan, I don't know if you know this.
• 3:29
  If there is a credit for casting all of those commercials, it's Mary.
• 3:34
  Oh really?
• 3:35
  Yeah.
• 3:35
  At Sutherland Weston, you assigned us to, gladly, start a series of commercials about real Mainers.
• 3:42
  Real Mainers know when it starts snowing, you just plow the yard, then you plow it again.
• 3:46
  And real Mainers love Dysarts.
• 3:48
  And you wanted some very specific people represented in the ads that spanned generations.
• 3:54
  So of course the buttery flaky crust couple- Jack and Sonja.
• 3:58
  Jack and Sonja were in there.
• 4:00
  There was a dad and his son, Paul Tormey and his son, Michael.
• 4:03
  There was a young woman that worked at the time there, I don't recall her name, Jordan and Emily.
• 4:10
  Yes.
• 4:10
  And I'm missing anybody else in this?
• 4:12
  Oh, I know who I'm missing.
• 4:13
  Your mom.
• 4:14
  Was it your mom?
• 4:15
  Miss Nancy.
• 4:16
  No, I can't think of anybody else.
• 4:17
  I think you got it all on the first try.
• 4:19
  Who played Miss Nancy on Romp-A-Romp-A-Room?
• 4:21
  That was Donnie Dysart's wife and no real relation to us, but the same last name.
• 4:27
  So we make them a relation.
• 4:28
  Are you kidding?
• 4:29
  I, all this time, I thought you guys were all related.
• 4:31
  Well, if you go back to like 1880, we were.
• 4:34
  I suppose you were.
• 4:35
  Okay.
• 4:35
  But Nancy was one of the people.
• 4:37
  And so you saw all of these people, various lifestyles, ages, and everyone liked Diceharts.
• 4:43
  You came to us and said, you know, I just want a commercial specifically about chicken pot pie and I want the usual cast of characters in it.
• 4:49
  And after working with the cast of characters, I did my darndest to make sure when it came to the complex line, baked in a buttery flaky crust, make sure that Jack doesn't have to say it.
• 5:00
  How'd that work out for you?
• 5:03
  Fabulously.
• 5:04
  How many millions of views are there?
• 5:06
  In the end it did.
• 5:08
  People came in at staggered times.
• 5:10
  Two people came in earlier or one person came in later.
• 5:13
  So we had to film them out of sequence and someone had took a different line and someone took a different line and then it came to the end and Jack and Sonya were there and I was like, oh my word.
• 5:21
  What are we going to do here?
• 5:23
  I am not the most well-spoken person in the world, but I never understood what made that such a difficult line.
• 5:30
  It was Jack.
• 5:31
  But Mary, you just tripped up on it.
• 5:33
  I've heard Rick trip up on it.
• 5:35
  I've heard other people trip up on it when they refer to the commercial.
• 5:38
  Is it like a mind game now?
• 5:40
  You sort of, it's almost, you know, it's almost like I'm going to screw this up, so I'm just going to lean into it.
• 5:45
  Yep.
• 5:45
  I'm sure that's exactly what it is and you always laugh when you mess it up.
• 5:49
  Yeah.
• 5:50
  I didn't know if we were going to get into that so early, but I did want to ask you, Rick and I talked about this when Saturday Night Live did a parody of it without naming Dysarts.
• 6:00
  I forget what they called it.
• 6:01
  They called it something else, but it wasn't clearly the parody.
• 6:04
  Dickerson's or something.
• 6:05
  Dickerson's.
• 6:05
  There's a picture of it we have framed in our kitchen here outside the podcast studio.
• 6:09
  But to have that commercial done and I, I'm a huge fan of comedy and Kate McKinnon and Will Ferrell are two legends of SNL.
• 6:18
  How did that feel knowing that that was, that's your place?
• 6:22
  Yeah.
• 6:23
  It was almost so big that you couldn't quite grasp the whole thing that, you know, you go along on your ordinary day of sometimes you have to do dishes or, you know, whatever the whole day is to have that be where it gets elevated to is surreal.
• 6:38
  Yeah.
• 6:38
  And I remember seeing News Center did a story, I think the following week, Jack and Sonya had not seen the parody and they showed it to them and got their reaction in real time.
• 6:48
  And oh my God, there is nothing more heartwarming than seeing them laugh at this.
• 6:52
  It was just adorable.
• 6:54
  And I suspect they didn't know who either one of the actors were.
• 6:58
  They probably didn't.
• 6:59
  But they laughed along all at the right time.
• 7:00
  They sure did.
• 7:01
  Exactly.
• 7:01
  SNL, I don't know how much of a budget they have, but they even put the front of the tractor trailer on the wall behind them to recreate the image.
• 7:11
  The whole thing looked so exactly the way it was supposed to.
• 7:15
  It's crazy.
• 7:16
  I was at a taping, well it's not taping, it's live, hence the name.
• 7:21
  Last year.
• 7:22
  Yeah.
• 7:23
  And it's the first time I'd been.
• 7:25
  And whether you like Saturday Night Live or don't like Saturday Night Live, the ballet that is the coordination of the sets moving around in real time as they do the show live and they have so much time to do it is just incredible.
• 7:39
  And now that I've seen that in person, I wish I was in the audience that night.
• 7:44
  That would have been the coolest thing to just stumble upon this main institution while you're there watching the show done live.
• 7:49
  I wish they'd called us.
• 7:51
  Did Will Ferrell or Kate McKinnon ever come to the restaurant?
• 7:53
  Not that I know of.
• 7:54
  They must've just seen the video.
• 7:56
  Yeah.
• 7:56
  Well, them and millions of other people.
• 7:59
  The chicken pot-pies are really good.
• 8:00
  They are.
• 8:01
  I don't think they're your biggest seller.
• 8:04
  Pretty much.
• 8:05
  Are they?
• 8:05
  Yeah.
• 8:05
  Along with your pancakes.
• 8:08
  We call them pants cakes now.
• 8:10
  Or the pumpkin chip cookies.
• 8:12
  Pumpkin chip cookies.
• 8:13
  You once told me the pumpkin chip cookies were among the best sellers of all of the cookies.
• 8:18
  Oh yeah.
• 8:18
  Absolutely.
• 8:19
  Is that at the truck stop and at the travel stops?
• 8:22
  Yes.
• 8:22
  And how many travel stops do we have now?
• 8:24
  Eight.
• 8:25
  I stopped to count them.
• 8:26
  Eight of them.
• 8:27
  There's another, there is another step in the business evolution of Dysarts.
• 8:30
  One truck stop, two truck stop.
• 8:32
  Sounds like a Dr. Seuss book.
• 8:34
  One truck stop, two truck stop, and now eight travel stops.
• 8:37
  Yes.
• 8:37
  Tell us about, well, let's look at Kevlan.
• 8:40
  Let's take that property and let's turn it into a second location.
• 8:43
  What was that like?
• 8:45
  Truthfully, probably not the smartest thing we ever did.
• 8:48
  Oh no.
• 8:49
  You hear you own one restaurant and you're successful.
• 8:53
  You open a second one and it just sort of brings you back to your knees.
• 8:58
  And that was, you know, when we opened Broadway, I had been with the company for 47 years since it opened and it had been, you know, turned into a machine.
• 9:13
  You know, we had, everybody kind of knew their place and we all had a plan.
• 9:17
  And I remember the first night Broadway opened, I went out to do dishes because, you know, it's one of those things that happens and I didn't even know where the scrunchie was.
• 9:25
  You know, it was like, you go, you go to having this, this is your house to having not a clue.
• 9:31
  But the hardest thing was, I don't particularly drink and we put a pub in and I took a bartending class and it was like I was in pre-K.
• 9:41
  I didn't have a clue.
• 9:45
  That was a kick.
• 9:46
  Did it make you take up drinking?
• 9:48
  I had to run.
• 9:50
  You know, you can't take up drinking when you get a run.
• 9:53
  Yeah.
• 9:53
  Unless you're in Millinocket.
• 9:54
  In Millinocket it's a totally different ball.
• 9:55
  If anyone can pull it off, it's Dan Cashman right over there.
• 9:58
  That's right.
• 9:58
  Exactly.
• 9:59
  Do we want to pivot and talk about that?
• 10:01
  You both have something in common.
• 10:02
  It's just one of you has run a whole lot more marathons than the other.
• 10:05
  And that would be Mary.
• 10:06
  I'm a whole lot older too.
• 10:08
  Well, but you started running marathons when?
• 10:11
  I was 50.
• 10:11
  50.
• 10:12
  So I still have time.
• 10:14
  Yes.
• 10:14
  That's what you're telling me.
• 10:15
  And for people who don't know, you have run a marathon in every state.
• 10:20
  Speaking of 50.
• 10:21
  And being this is a question I get asked all the time because people kind of go, well, that's nice.
• 10:25
  You've done a marathon.
• 10:26
  You know, I've watched a marathon on TV.
• 10:30
  But to say what a marathon is, is running from Brewer to Ellsworth.
• 10:36
  That kind of brings it into our world knows what that means.
• 10:40
  Especially when you got to go over those hills in Lucerne.
• 10:42
  That would really stink.
• 10:43
  Yeah.
• 10:43
  With the Bar Harbor coming up.
• 10:45
  Exactly.
• 10:45
  That's as bad.
• 10:47
  Did you expect the feeling you would get both of exhaustion and when you crossed the finish line when you did your first one?
• 10:54
  Yes, absolutely.
• 10:55
  You did?
• 10:56
  Absolutely.
• 10:56
  I, you know, I guess I kind of felt that way when I did a 5k, you know, just, I always would start with getting adrenaline and what am I doing?
• 11:06
  I can't imagine I've been so dumb as to sign up to do this.
• 11:09
  It's like buying another truck stop on Broadway.
• 11:12
  Exactly.
• 11:12
  And then you get to a certain point and you think, oh, I've only got 16 more miles to go.
• 11:19
  Yeah.
• 11:20
  And you know, it just kind of goes from there.
• 11:23
  What is the feeling you have when you cross that finish line?
• 11:25
  What's the first thing you do when you cross the finish line?
• 11:28
  I think it's more just that whole, it's done.
• 11:32
  I've finished.
• 11:33
  You know, I'm just really happy that I've gotten there.
• 11:35
  Do you sprawl out on the pavement?
• 11:37
  Do you walk it off?
• 11:38
  Do you sit?
• 11:39
  Do you lean up against a wall?
• 11:41
  Do you find the water and bananas?
• 11:42
  Where do you head?
• 11:43
  Oh, definitely food.
• 11:44
  Yeah.
• 11:45
  Yeah.
• 11:45
  That food is definitely the big one.
• 11:47
  I sob uncontrollably.
• 11:49
  Really?
• 11:49
  It's been every, I've done four doing, the day we're recording this, I'm doing my fifth two days from now and I have not completed a marathon without uncontrollable weeping.
• 12:00
  Wow.
• 12:00
  And it's very embarrassing now.
• 12:02
  I feel like I'm just going to bring the Kleenex with me and have them in my hand for the entire run.
• 12:07
  I wish I could be there for you.
• 12:09
  No.
• 12:09
  No, you would love it.
• 12:11
  No, no.
• 12:11
  I want to look at you and laugh.
• 12:12
  You would love nothing more.
• 12:14
  No, that is not true.
• 12:14
  I'd want to be there to be supportive of you.
• 12:16
  Well, you're welcome to come.
• 12:18
  Well, Mary, you say you get such a sense of relief after it's done, but you keep going to other states and you keep running or you've kept running.
• 12:25
  Yes.
• 12:26
  Because- I love goals.
• 12:28
  And when I did my first one, when I was 50, I met a couple of guys who had shirts on that said they'd run a marathon in every state.
• 12:36
  And I ran with them for about 13 miles and they told me all about the 50 state club.
• 12:41
  And I got done and I said to my husband, I have a new goal.
• 12:48
  And he's very polite.
• 12:50
  He never laughs at me, but I said to my brothers, I have a new goal.
• 12:55
  And they both laughed.
• 12:56
  So then you have to fulfill your goal because your brothers laughed at you.
• 13:01
  That was exactly what got me going through my first marathon was I said that I was going to run a marathon for my 10 year anniversary of losing a bunch of weight.
• 13:08
  And my brother laughed so hard, food came out of his mouth.
• 13:12
  And that whole, like the, I hit the wall that everyone talks about.
• 13:16
  And I just kept saying, I got to do this to prove Derek wrong, I've got to finish.
• 13:21
  And I did.
• 13:22
  But there is something to that brother laughing at you that just makes you want to finish.
• 13:25
  Absolutely.
• 13:25
  And once you've done one, you know what to expect.
• 13:29
  So this fifth one you're going to do, they just keep getting simpler because your brain does learn to accept the stupidity of how you're feeling.
• 13:38
  I don't know.
• 13:39
  Can we just take a moment to think about Dan Cashman accepting stupidity?
• 13:43
  Okay, I'm done.
• 13:44
  Go on.
• 13:44
  Yeah.
• 13:44
  Anyone that knows me knows.
• 13:48
  You've done more than run marathons.
• 13:49
  I want to take you back to when you were a part of Team Dice Art for Trek Across Maine.
• 13:56
  And Elizabeth was on the team.
• 13:57
  I was on the team.
• 13:58
  Others were on the team and we all pedaled as a team.
• 14:01
  And we all finished as a team.
• 14:02
  Bethel to Belfast.
• 14:03
  Yep.
• 14:04
  And we had our Team Dysarts jerseys powered by Pi.
• 14:08
  Yes.
• 14:09
  I still have those.
• 14:10
  Yes, I do too.
• 14:11
  It doesn't fit me anymore, but yeah, I still have one.
• 14:14
  You have kids and you can no longer find the daycare because mom and dad, I'm not doing this again.
• 14:18
  I'm not going to watch your kids.
• 14:20
  You're on your own, Junior.
• 14:20
  We then pivoted our attention when it comes to cycling and running to Champion the Cure Challenge.
• 14:25
  Yes.
• 14:25
  And then we also had a Team Dysarts.
• 14:28
  Yes.
• 14:29
  So got to wear the jersey again, running a 10K, then pedaling the century.
• 14:34
  Yes.
• 14:35
  Never going to do that again.
• 14:36
  No.
• 14:36
  But you talked about community service and Dysarts being a community member and always serving.
• 14:42
  Dysarts' generosity toward Champion the Cure Challenge, beyond outstanding.
• 14:47
  And again, I ask why.
• 14:48
  My dad had died of cancer, so we, you know, very much got behind it.
• 14:54
  The cookbook that I wrote, we still are selling it.
• 14:58
  I think we're like 15 years into having the cookbook and we donate all the proceeds.
• 15:06
  Sometimes our bookkeeping gets a little confused and I think we've donated more than actually what we've sold.
• 15:11
  How did that happen?
• 15:13
  But anyway, somewhere around $150,000 we've raised from the cookbook and donated.
• 15:19
  Wow.
• 15:19
  Is the recipe for the pumpkin chip cookies in the cookbook?
• 15:22
  I think so.
• 15:23
  Got to go back and look at that.
• 15:24
  Yeah.
• 15:24
  Yeah.
• 15:25
  I can bake some and then Dan, when you finish your next marathon, I'll have some for you with the finish line along with some Kleenex.
• 15:30
  Yeah.
• 15:31
  I'll probably have to sop up everything.
• 15:34
  The other thing that Dysarts has done when it comes to generosity and baking, and I do not know if the recipe for this is in the cookbook, but the purple berry pie.
• 15:46
  We gave out that recipe in postcards for a long while.
• 15:49
  And that was a huge, huge success.
• 15:54
  And COVID was sort of a problem with having it go away.
• 15:58
  And I think probably next year we're going to try and bring it back again.
• 16:02
  Now, for those that don't know, what is a purple berry pie?
• 16:04
  It's a blueberry pie with a crunchy top on top of it.
• 16:07
  And we called it purple berry because my husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer's when he was 62 and looking for a way to be able to share with the community of other people who have Alzheimer's to be able to raise money for research and different things that you need to have with Alzheimer's.
• 16:27
  I do not know if you leaned on Sutherland Weston when we were working with you and naming purple berry pie.
• 16:32
  I think you may have just named purple berry pie, but when you say it, the question someone immediately has is, what's a purple berry?
• 16:38
  And then it opens the door to explain purple as the color of support for Alzheimer's research.
• 16:45
  We had the team last week with the Alzheimer's walk here in Bangor and my whole team, except Mike, because poor Mike, he's been abused enough.
• 16:57
  We all wore purple tutus.
• 17:00
  And I have a picture of Mike looking like he's got a purple tutu on and the poor guy goes into a truck stop, him being a manly man, and he sees his face with his tutu being splattered all over things, marketing.
• 17:15
  So I couldn't get him back in it again.
• 17:17
  But your passion for the research has taken you from the heart of Bangor, I think, and if I'm wrong, I love to say this, shout me down.
• 17:24
  It's taken you all the way to Washington DC at the invitation of Maine Senator Susan Collins.
• 17:29
  Yes.
• 17:29
  We go every year.
• 17:30
  We're her ambassadors.
• 17:32
  Somewhere around 1,200 people go and advocate.
• 17:36
  We do what they call Storm the Hill and advocate for research funds to be, and different bills to be passed to be able to make Alzheimer's being with the hope that we have right now.
• 17:50
  Because we started in 17 and I have looked at the money that has grown through the years since this whole aspect of growing has happened, and it's gone from like $1 billion to $3.8 billion being put into research right now.
• 18:09
  That's fantastic.
• 18:10
  Yes, it is.
• 18:10
  And encouraging, I think.
• 18:12
  But what's really fantastic is Mike had an appointment a little while ago and I said to his doctor, because we'd just come back from this DC event, and I said to his doctor, how about me?
• 18:26
  Where is this going for somebody who isn't diagnosed?
• 18:30
  And he said that he feels, and this is at Mass General in Boston, he feels that in two years we'll be able to go in to have our normal blood testing done, getting our cholesterol and whatever else we're having done.
• 18:42
  And they'll be able to test us for whether or not we have any signs of Alzheimer's happening.
• 18:48
  That's huge.
• 18:49
  Just beyond huge.
• 18:51
  Until we find a cure, I'll be happy for early detection.
• 18:53
  Well, the way it's going right now is there's a man who lives in Portland, talking about marathons.
• 19:00
  He did Chicago last week, and he's 74 years old.
• 19:06
  And he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's 10 years ago, was able to get into one of the studies for the medication that was eventually approved, and he can run a marathon at 74 years old.
• 19:16
  That's incredible.
• 19:17
  Mike's having a hard time getting out of his chair.
• 19:19
  And this is just huge that this is happening.
• 19:23
  I've had a couple of family members with Alzheimer's, close friends, their parents have had it.
• 19:30
  Having been in your shoes for the past decade or so, what advice would you give to somebody if you're in the elevator and they say, my loved one just got diagnosed with Alzheimer's, what can you tell them as somebody who's been a loving, supportive spouse of somebody else that has been diagnosed?
• 19:48
  Don't take the advice of go home and get your affairs in order.
• 19:51
  Take the advice that I got from being involved in the Alzheimer's Association of live your life at its fullest.
• 19:59
  We bought a camper, we go all the time, and you make adjustments for how he's feeling, but we'll keep doing it.
• 20:08
  You once told me that Mike had to one day hand over the car keys, and in the same conversation you said, oh yeah, he also had to put down the chainsaw.
• 20:16
  And I asked you, which was harder for him to put down, the car keys or the chainsaw?
• 20:23
  And I remember your answer, and I just want to see if it's still the same.
• 20:27
  Chainsaw.
• 20:27
  Oh yeah.
• 20:28
  Absolutely.
• 20:29
  He loved his chainsaw, which is where it goes so hard that he had to wear a tutu in.
• 20:37
  I'm going to segue from the chainsaw, meaning taking down wood, because there's an aspect of ...
• 20:42
  If I said to you, Dan Cashman, tell me an aspect of Dysarts.
• 20:46
  It would be what?
• 20:47
  Name something about it.
• 20:48
  If I say Dysarts, you say ...
• 20:49
  Well, I would think the restaurant.
• 20:51
  Truck stop.
• 20:51
  Truck stop.
• 20:52
  If I said anything else about Dysarts, what would you say?
• 20:55
  I don't know.
• 20:56
  So I know there's different aspects, but I don't know what you're getting at here.
• 20:59
  I can go to the nitty gritty on the menu, I can talk about the coffee.
• 21:03
  No, there's Dysarts, there's the truck stops, there's the travel stops.
• 21:05
  The different businesses.
• 21:06
  But there's also like this heavy duty road service, lubricants, and heating, all of these other things.
• 21:13
  Yep.
• 21:13
  How did you guys diversify to do all of that over there?
• 21:17
  Where'd that come from?
• 21:18
  And should Sutherland Weston do the same?
• 21:20
  My dad always thought that if one piece of your business wasn't doing well, if you had other pieces, one can make up for the other.
• 21:28
  And my older brother, I remember him being ...
• 21:31
  Before he had a driver's license, there was land that my father owned behind where we lived, and he'd go out and cut boat wood to be able to bring over to the mill and brewer, to be able to make money.
• 21:42
  He's like 13, 14 years old doing it by hand.
• 21:46
  And from there, he's always loved wood.
• 21:48
  He loves everything to do, he belongs to the council, and it's one of his passions.
• 21:56
  So the family business has been very business motivated.
• 21:59
  Yes.
• 21:59
  So I'm going to ask this if this is true.
• 22:01
  The color of Dysarts is green, but what is the actual green?
• 22:05
  The green of what?
• 22:06
  Money.
• 22:07
  Yep.
• 22:08
  That was definitely my dad's thing.
• 22:10
  He loved cash.
• 22:13
  Well, we all have something in common here.
• 22:16
  We have a few stories we can't tell, but the IRS wouldn't have approved us if it hadn't happened.
• 22:22
  Again, we bring up the statute of limitations.
• 22:24
  Exactly.
• 22:25
  And I guess there's one more.
• 22:26
  Is there a marina or something?
• 22:28
  Yes.
• 22:28
  100 people surveyed, top five answers on the board.
• 22:31
  Name a part of the Dysarts empire, I'll say, and I think marina would be down there.
• 22:35
  We've always kind of kept a low profile of the marina because it's like another world.
• 22:41
  And it wasn't really a thing that was thought out in the beginning so much as having a chance to be able to buy the old cannery that's in Southwest Harbor that was a falling down dock.
• 22:52
  I couldn't even tell you where it is, but I know it's on the water somewhere.
• 22:54
  I know right where it is.
• 22:55
  I've driven by it a number of times.
• 22:57
  And the cannery was for sale, and my brother who, along with Wood, likes sailboats, and he had a house next door to where the cannery was.
• 23:07
  And so they got the cannery and joined with Hinckley for a little while.
• 23:11
  And then eventually it just is theirs now.
• 23:14
  And just one of those things that my brother really enjoys that world.
• 23:19
  Do you ever find anybody drives by, sees the name Dysarts, and they just stop in because they have a hankering for a chicken pot pie?
• 23:25
  I hope so.
• 23:26
  Because you don't have those at the marina.
• 23:28
  No.
• 23:28
  No.
• 23:28
  Okay.
• 23:29
  No.
• 23:30
  I mean, two restaurants are enough.
• 23:31
  I've already said it takes you to your knees.
• 23:33
  The Southwest Harbor is a very seasonal community.
• 23:36
  I'm just saying maybe a Dysarts summer on the wharf.
• 23:39
  We mentioned COVID before, and we often talk with our guests about the challenges they have to overcome.
• 23:46
  And was it during COVID that we stepped away from the Herman dice art being 24 hours?
• 23:53
  Yes.
• 23:53
  Are we back to 24 hours?
• 23:55
  No.
• 23:55
  Because trucks run on computers now.
• 23:58
  And it used to be trucks would run all through the night and you'd go in and you could have 25 drivers sitting in the trucker's room.
• 24:05
  Drivers don't drive at night anymore because they're limited to what they can do with the computer.
• 24:10
  And why would you drive at three o'clock in the morning if you didn't have to?
• 24:13
  Do you miss those days?
• 24:15
  No.
• 24:16
  Do you think your customers miss those days?
• 24:18
  I think the world's changed.
• 24:20
  You know, it used to be somebody would say to us, I went to the University of Maine and used to go to Dysarts.
• 24:25
  And I'd immediately know that when they went to Dysarts, it was at two o'clock in the morning.
• 24:30
  Yes.
• 24:30
  It's like, you know, it used to be.
• 24:31
  Right.
• 24:32
  Yeah.
• 24:32
  But you know, people don't, people don't do that anymore.
• 24:36
  It's a different world.
• 24:37
  My kids, when Ian came home from college for Christmas break, sophomore year, junior year, all that kid wanted to do was go get breakfast in the middle of the night.
• 24:48
  And so we got up, it was midnight.
• 24:52
  We got in the car and we drove.
• 24:54
  They were heartbroken that it wasn't open.
• 24:56
  Yep.
• 24:57
  And we turned around and came home and like, I think we made toast.
• 25:01
  I don't know.
• 25:02
  I miss those days.
• 25:03
  We do, but boy, with the problems you have convincing people to work past nine o'clock at night.
• 25:10
  Oh, that's true.
• 25:11
  It's much easier to schedule.
• 25:13
  A cousin of mine in Salem, Massachusetts, his family restaurant closed in the last couple of years.
• 25:18
  Staffing.
• 25:19
  It was a family business and they had reduced their hours.
• 25:22
  It was an Italian restaurant with a bar and they had to reduce the hours and even after reducing the hours, they had been six days a week open until midnight, one in the morning.
• 25:31
  They reduced it to being four days a week open.
• 25:34
  I think it was noon to nine and they couldn't even get staffing for that and they ended up closing and it was three generations of a family business and it's heartbreaking.
• 25:42
  But at the same time, you have to do what you need to do to survive.
• 25:46
  And if that means going from 24 hours a day to 12, 13, 14, 15, 14 hours a day, it's like if price is right, just stop me when I get there, 14 hours a day, then that's what you do.
• 25:55
  And I think that Dysarts has adapted incredibly well.
• 25:58
  Yep.
• 25:59
  And you know, it definitely staffing with some, but the bigger thing is that we are always 24 seven for the drivers and drivers just aren't there, you know, and it all changed with the way that the whole trucking industry changed.
• 26:14
  Everybody having computers in their trucks.
• 26:16
  You help run a successful business.
• 26:18
  You are an Alzheimer's champion.
• 26:21
  You're on marathons and you have a camera and you do some crazy, crazy things with it.
• 26:26
  So good.
• 26:27
  Thank you.
• 26:28
  How did that come to be?
• 26:29
  When did you become such a shutterbug?
• 26:31
  Um, about the time, you know, I always took pictures, but about the time that I became an empty nester, I joined the Eastern Maine Camera Club.
• 26:39
  I became friends with all the people who belong to Eastern Maine Camera Club and you just begin to try and learn to get better.
• 26:47
  We started out with film and went with a group that you'd say, Oh, how did you do that?
• 26:52
  And so you just keep trying to get better.
• 26:54
  It's like the moose come to you.
• 26:56
  That's the way it feels like when I'm looking at them.
• 26:58
  I mean, the still lifes that you're doing, okay.
• 27:00
  Like the, the, the big, the rustic building or, or the old tractor and you, you stand there and you look at it and you, you see the character in it.
• 27:07
  But maybe I've seen one in the past of like a fox.
• 27:10
  Maybe I've seen one or certainly the moose or the mooses, what's the plural?
• 27:15
  The moose.
• 27:15
  Okay.
• 27:16
  The plural.
• 27:17
  It's like they are right there.
• 27:20
  And I don't know if you got a really big lens that zooms in either that or they are coming up and just sitting down with you.
• 27:25
  Okay.
• 27:26
  How do you want me to pose?
• 27:27
  Stand over here.
• 27:28
  Get my best side, Mary.
• 27:29
  How do you do that?
• 27:30
  Well, last week I was sitting on the ground and moose was quite a ways away and he began walking closer to me and I began thinking, Hmm, I'm old.
• 27:39
  Am I going to be able to get up in time?
• 27:43
  So there is that, that thing of, uh, you have to think this through.
• 27:48
  I'm confident that if it got into a race, the moose would give up before you hit 26.2 miles.
• 27:53
  Exactly.
• 27:54
  Exactly.
• 27:55
  Can I be very bold and ask a question?
• 27:58
  Yes.
• 27:58
  We know you won't let us, that we can ask this, Mary, how old are you?
• 28:02
  71.
• 28:04
  How old do you feel?
• 28:06
  Um, to quote my brother, only old when I look in the mirror.
• 28:10
  Mm.
• 28:10
  You're looking in the wrong mirror then you do not look 71.
• 28:14
  Well, thank you.
• 28:15
  Thank you.
• 28:15
  Thank you.
• 28:15
  The running is the reason.
• 28:17
  Running does it.
• 28:18
  I'm guessing you also maintain a healthy lifestyle aside from running.
• 28:22
  Right.
• 28:22
  You mentioned you don't drink.
• 28:24
  Uh, I would imagine.
• 28:25
  Not many pancakes.
• 28:25
  Not many purple berry pies.
• 28:27
  All right.
• 28:28
  Boy, that must be a struggle.
• 28:29
  It is.
• 28:30
  Do you have a sweet tooth?
• 28:31
  Oh yeah.
• 28:32
  Yeah.
• 28:32
  Absolutely.
• 28:33
  I grew up with my mother making cookies.
• 28:35
  You'd come home after school to homemade cookies.
• 28:38
  Yeah.
• 28:38
  Do you ever intend to act your age?
• 28:41
  Never.
• 28:41
  I got things to do.
• 28:43
  Thanks for listening to The Rick and Dan Show.
• 28:45
  And thanks Rick for making this a very entertaining, unique experience.
• 28:49
  Sarcasm filter off.
• 28:52
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• 28:55
  And maybe leave us a review on your favorite listening platform.
• 28:58
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• 29:00
  And next time you hear someone say, you can't get there from here.
• 29:03
  You tell them to listen to The Rick and Dan Show.