George Tedlock is 100 years old. One hundred years and 11 days to be exact. And the day he found his calling in life -- chocolates -- is a day he remembers as though it were yesterday.
Mr. Tedlock was walking along a street in Everett, Wash., when the warm and rich aroma of freshly made chocolate wafted from a tiny shop.
"The smell was so inviting," recalls the lively Vancouverite. "I went in to see what was going on." The shop owner, a Mr. Murphy, was making candy.
For Mr. Tedlock it was a life-altering moment. "I watched him stirring something in this big copper kettle and I thought, 'Wow, this is what I was made for. This is what I was waiting for all my life. This will be my heart's first love.' It was luck!"
That was 1935, in the Depression, and Mr. Tedlock was an unemployed 29-year-old. "I asked this man if he would be willing to teach me to make candy and I would pay him. He asked me how much, and I told him I had $37 in the bank. He said, 'I'll take it.' "
Mr. Tedlock, who was born in Cranbrook, has been true to his first love for almost 70 years; he retired from the candy-making business just five years ago. But, happily for Vancouverites, his mouth-watering recipes, his antique chocolate moulds and his famous mint chocolate truffles endure.
Mr. Tedlock opened Lee's Old World Candies in 1950, after a successful candy career in Bellingham and Seattle, and remains a Vancouver institution. (He called it Lee's "because Tedlock is not a name for a candy store, and Lee's is easy to remember.")
In the tiny shop, smaller than a walk-in closet, chocoholics indulge in a wide variety of confections, happily paying $40 a kilogram ($18 a pound) for the treats. Chocolates with luscious cream fillings, fluffy caramels, crunchy almond bark or peanut brittle, fudge, solid chocolate shapes, and huge, hollow chocolate animals crowd the glass shelves and antique showcase in the bright-white store.
Lee's continues to flourish, and nourish those with a sweet tooth, in the hands of 47-year-old Valeria Finnigan, who worked with Mr. Tedlock for 20 years before buying his business in 2001.
"I was working in construction and I saw a little notice in the window saying help wanted," Ms. Finnigan recalls. "I went in and got the job."
"Valeria," pronounces Mr. Tedlock, "is wonderful. Luck again."
Ms. Finnigan, whose long black hair and Cleopatra-style eye makeup are now part of Lee's persona, started off boxing candies, but quickly decided she wanted to be a chocolatier. Although she loves it, the job isn't glamorous, she says cheerfully.
"It's hard work, labour intensive and can be dangerous. You are dealing with 40-pound kettles of boiling candy. Between Halloween and Mother's Day I work until 1 o'clock most nights."
Co-manager Nicole Steen assists with the rolling and dipping and her husband, Les Finnigan, a musician and composer, is Lee's unofficial handyman.
The store sells about $5,000 worth of candies a month -- "Big stores would laugh at our sales," Ms. Finnigan says -- with Christmas the bumper chocolate season (last year's sales were about $26,000). Easter is also busy.
Ms. Finnigan starts stockpiling her regular delicacies a month before Easter and in the past two weeks has been creating bunnies, eggs and chickens almost around the clock. Where else can you find a chocolate bunny riding a chicken and playing an accordion, or a bunny carrying a rifle (made from an old mould Mr. Tedlock discovered)?
Gayle Raines, who works in retail and lives a few blocks from Lee's in Point Grey, has been buying candy at the store for almost 50 years, as did her parents before her.
"My dad was big on Lee's. I didn't know anything else," she says. "The thing that I like, apart from the wonderful chocolate, is the people. Mr. Tedlock had such bright blue eyes and was so chatty. Now Valeria exchanges CDs with my teenage daughter and is great. I'm addicted to peanut butter puffs. When I go for a walk I try to avoid the shop, because once I see it, I'm in there."
Another devotee, Janet Tate, a children's speech therapist and mother of two, lives near Commercial Drive and drives across town for a regular fix of mint truffles. "They are wonderful. They have a strong flavour but they're not overwhelming. I've introduced them to lots of people."
Mr. Tedlock rarely goes back to Lee's, although the Finnigans visit him every week. He has another connection with his old store, though. He paints watercolours that Ms. Finnigan transforms into cards and sells in the shop. "Imagine," he exclaims of his artwork, "some people pay $2.50 for these!"
Mr. Tedlock, who also plays the guitar and keyboard, lives in a West End high-rise, prepares his own meals and enjoys a drop of scotch once or twice a week, "when it seems like a good idea."
Though he never married, he says, eyes twinkling, "I have never lacked for female friendships." He walks a mile every day and feeds the birds at the beach. He jogged every day until he was well into his 80s and joined a gym last year, but didn't like the machines. Now he exercises every morning at home, using weights.
The source of his excellent health and longevity? Exercise, fresh air, eating well and keeping in touch with nature. Most important, he thinks, is "keeping a positive outlook and avoiding anything or anyone negative. And luck!"
He also eats "at least a few" dark chocolate medallions every day, which Ms. Finnigan brings him. "They have always been my favourite, and now they've decided dark chocolate is good for you. I could have told them that."