He described the reactions of the Isle residents upon receiving the catalogs as: “You’d have thought we were the Queen Mary!”[1] In 1936, his family moved into the former Noyes & Nutter stove foundry in Bangor.

[1] Galen entered basic training in 1945, and shortly thereafter received the news that his childhood best friend, Charlie Flanagan, had been killed on the Siegfried Line.

[1] During his time as the president of Cole Express, he developed a split-compartment truck that allowed petroleum and freight to be transported simultaneously.

[1] Children and teachers began to come to learn about the history of transportation in the state, and so in the '80s Cole purchased a piece of land to create a full-fledged museum.

[2] The parade also included the 50th-anniversary reunion of the 5th Armored Division and the Eastern Maine Medical Center Follies Salute to USO Show.

"[2] In 2002, he was awarded a citation by National Americanism Officer Robert Marks from the Military Order of the Purple Heart in recognition of his "devotion to teaching schoolchildren the meaning of freedom and of the sacrifices made by America’s service men and women as well as [his] support of all other programs promoting Americanism to include Scouting and the Military Order of the Purple Heart of the U.S.A. [...] and as an expression of appreciation for [his] years of exceptional service”[5] Cole founded the Walking Sticks for Veterans program in Maine, based on a similar program in Florida.