Super Senior: Carl Cushing

FERRISBURGH, Vt. (WCAX) - Across the tracks at Vermont Livestock and Processing in Ferrisburgh, owner Carl Cushing has a poignant pic.

“It was a long time ago,” he recalled.

Cushing was a six-year-old who wore leg braces due to polio and nerve damage caused by radiation battling cancer. At school, he was the target of curiosity and occasional cruelty. “I didn’t like that at all,” he said. His dad sat him down one day after he was feeling particularly sorry for himself. “‘I would do anything for you but I can’t do this. You have to do it for yourself,’” he recalled his dad saying.

He took that to heart and he says never complained again. Until five years ago, Cushing used crutches. Now, due to wear and tear on his body, he moves about in a motorized wheelchair.

He is in the midst of a multi-million dollar project to renovate and modernize the Addison County slaughterhouse. “We’re down to the last third of the project,” Cushing said.

Reporter Joe Carroll: You hope to be the biggest.

Carl Cushing: Ah, maybe not the biggest, just the best.

The 12,000-foot building is designed for the 70-year-old to go anywhere he pleases in his wheelchair.

Reporter Joe Carroll: You must be proud of this.

Carl Cushing: If it doesn’t show, it’s been 50 years hoping I could do something like this.

Cushing himself was a meat cutter and then a long-time meat inspector for the state of Vermont. He now runs the business with his wife, Karen. “You can see her head is in what needs to be done,” Cushing said. “Seventy years old and she outworks the kids in there.”

Their son, Ryan, is also a key player, with father and son seeing eye to eye in most business matters. “I’ve been fortunate to learn everything I learned, not just on the meat cutting side, but on the whole business aspect,” Ryan said. “I’ve been very fortunate to the work ethic and positivity from him.”

Reporter Joe Carroll: You don’t consider this {wheelchair} a handicap?

Carl Cushing: No. An inconvenience. This is a convenience because I have an inconvenience, so this {wheelchair} levels it out.

Reporter Joe Carroll: So, this isn’t a positive spin on an “inconvenience,” as you call it.

Carl Cushing: This is life.

The new meat processing plant will triple the original size of the plant, but there have been cost overruns. “Let’s say it’s three times, four times more than we planned,” Cushing said. But he remains bullish on beef and sees profit in pork. He’s confident in the future of the business and himself.

Reporter Joe Carroll: You’re not planning on leaving anytime soon?

Carl Cushing: No sir!

His “inconvenience,” he says, turned out to be a blessing. “This will sound even stranger. I don’t think I would have wanted to go through this life without having faced what I have. I think I would have been a different person,” Cushing said.

A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words. Cushing can sum up his life in just four words. “I’m a lucky man,” he said.

Copyright 2024 WCAX. All rights reserved.