Things I Miss

In making sense of Vancouver--OK, I know it's not technically a town as my blog title would indicate, rather it's a sprawling metropolitan city, but my neighbourhood of Fairview feels like a small town. I expanding my territories to neighbouring Kitsiliano and Point Grey to the West and East Vancouver as they also remind me of towns. When you grow up in a civilization town-sized or smaller it's easier to make the transition to a big city by thinking it's just a cluster of streets, that form neighbourhoods, that cluster into towns, then are part of small cities that unite to form the Lower Mainland.

I've taken a long time to make the adjustment from rural to urban living and just when I learned to stop looking at all the strangers passing me by hoping to see a familiar face, I start seeing familiar faces wherever go and the city doesn't seem so anonymous anymore. However; there are still some things I miss about simpler less metro places I've lived as follows.

TOP 10 THINGS TO MISS ABOUT SMALL TOWN LIVING

#10 - OPEN PARKING
Pay parking wasn't something I had to worry about in Raley, AB. Raley was a grain elevator surrounded by three houses. Didn't have to pay to park in front of our own house or anyone else's for that matter. Plenty of room to park your car, RV, tractor, semi or locomotive in the yard. Neither did I have to worry about it in the quaint burb of Tsawwassen, with our RV-sized carport, driveway that would fit two cars, plus a parking spot in front of our hedge. There still isn't a parking meter to be found there, which is great because I still go there to the doctor.


#9 - HAVING FUN FOR FREE
While fees for recreational activities, aside from downhill skiing, are reasonable here, they were FREE in Raley. In the summer, the lake was our swimming pool, in the winter it was our skating rink. There were miles of flat fields to cross-country ski through in the winter--no pass required. If we had those modern snowshoes back then, we would have been tripping through the surface of the snow at no charge too. Something you can only do here out-of-bounds--some OOB trails being more safe than others.

#8 - SOLITUDE
Adolescence was an angsty outcasty kind of time for me--sort of like being a vampire but without the teeth and blood lust. I loved to go on midnight wanders by myself on the "triangle", three roads that formed a triangle walk of about a mile, at all times of the year. I didn't know fear then. I could see anyone or anything approach for miles. Now, there are women that walk through the city bravely at all hours, but I was never one of them. Even when I was unaffected by arthritis and could run and cycle fast, there were too many dark places for baddies to hide and I was realistic about how much stronger an attacker can be.

The only place I felt confident and safe in the dark was on the water, but my paddling days are over, so there really isn't a outdoor place that I can think of where I can get that kind of solitude and the peace that comes with it as I did back in the yellow house on the prairies.

#7 - LIMITED TV & NO INTERNET

Having three channels and the fact that the Internet hadn't been invented and computers were the size of well, grain elevators, meant I wasted less time. More reading, more studying, more cooking, more gardening, more life as the alternative was boredom. Seems like these days, it's not real until it's in my status update--ha ha. But I do offset wasted hours in front of the TV with crafting, so perhaps it's not totally wasted.

#6 - SELF-SUFFICIENCY
We needed that storeroom filled with everything we needed for the household with the closest store nine miles away. Not that nine miles was that far, but before we had a drivers' license and with our parents working in a city forty miles from the acreage, we had to be resourceful and prepared for bad weather havoc. A few times each winter, my sister and I would be sealed into the house by snow with the roads closed, so totally on our own coping with a frozen well and no electricity. That's why there were oil lamps and matches in every room, a storeroom downstairs that took hours and hours of cleaning, mouse-proofing and organizing every month, and a huge fireplace to keep us warm and to melt snow for water.

In Vancouver, we don't have enough space for a storeroom, if there's a prob with electricity, natural gas, water, etc. we just dial the phone and have hot and cold running service people to restore it immediately. Nice but it worries me that I won't be prepared for something like "The Big One" earthquake if that happened in my lifetime.

#5 - SLOW FOOD
I didn't like seeing a pig butchered and hung up in front of me for cleaning, nor did I enjoy watching my dad chop the heads off our chickens, but I do miss picking up fresh eggs, honey, milk, meat, fish and produce at the West Raley Hutterite Colony two miles from our Raley house. There's something pure about getting your food from the source, that can't compare to the finest dining experience in the city.

I did enjoy our veggie patch in Tsawwassen, but there's no room for that in our duplex's micro-yard, but that's what farmer's markets are for, right?

#4 - SEEING HIGH-SCHOOL FRIENDS ONLY AT REUNIONS
Well, technically I've only attended one reunion and that was my husband's 10th high-school reunion. But Oak Bay High had such a huge graduating class no one remembered each other, so I just went with the flow and met lots of interesting people who I had no prior judgments of. I do plan to attend my 30th reunion next summer in Cardston, AB. A quaint border-town with good people--the entire population of which would fit in the Telus HQ in Burnaby. A fact I discovered when I worked in this boot-shaped building a long time ago--it was very like a town with its own bakery, drycleaner and other amenities.

If it weren't for FaceBook, Classmates.com and email I would have lost touch completely with the exception of one special friend, who toughed it out with me through the snail mail years (yes, that's you ERO).

I had a mini-reunion in Victoria and was overwhelmed with emotion to see a high-school bud after nearly 30 years. She looked gorgeous and hadn't changed a bit since high-school even after four kids and one grand-kid--wow! Me, well, I don't at all resemble my 100 lb self, but at least I still sound the same--ha ha.

#3- ONE MOVIE THEATRE & DRIVE-INS

Yes, the multiplex, 3-D, omni, Imax theatres are great and offer a plethora of entertainment options, but I miss the one theatre where the whole movie-loving community packed in on cheap night. No worries about gang hits in a one-theatre town.

There was nothing that said family entertainment more than dressing in our PJs and going to the drive-in with our parents. We nodded off after the first feature, leaving my parents to enjoy the second feature without our bleats for popcorn, pop and the bathroom. Waking up in our beds the next morning and not remembering how we got from the car into bed was pure magic.

#2 - CHARACTERS WHO OCCUPY SMALL PLACES
Small communities take care of their own--it's true. They know to be kind to the ones with special needs, the ones with bad luck, the ones with poor health, the ones with broken hearts, the ones who were having a hard time, which pretty much included everyone. Global TLC seemed the status quo.

Perhaps, that's why my parents are offended when they visit Vancouver because people don't smile at them in the street, or stop to have a friendly chat with them when they say "Hi." I try to explain that in the city people are rushing from point A to B and if they're approached they assume you are an aggressive beggar. This doesn't seem a satisfactory explanation and I suppose it is pretty snotty of us not to pay attention to people from out of town. Well, we did the best we could during the Olympics being friendly and helpful to tourists and now we're tired out.

I do have to be viligant and teach out of town family and friends not to give money to the prevalent street people as they are often addicts or alcoholics and we're just perpetuating their addictions. Or, they are mentally ill and we really should take care of them but just don't know how. We don't know how to tell the difference between the opportunistic and truly needy--it's complicated and something we struggle with. Also, we have laws that the experienced street people are well aware of that they aren't to be pan-handling aggressively. You can tell the transient panhandlers by how aggressive they are compared to our locals. We're not proud of the number of street people we have and hope that those who want to get off the street will take advantage of the programs we have to do so. The warm weather and relatively mild winters keep attracting them to this very expensive place.

#1 - LIVING CLOSE TO FAMILY
Like most families, there was that beautiful time when we all lived under one roof within shouting distance of each other. But then my sister and I grew up and moved away from home and home disappeared--sold to another Raley family of redheads and their livestock. My parents moved to Kelowna, which I tried on for a year and found my journey wasn't over and I needed to Go West young woman, Go West. So for decades it was harry scary trips over the Hope-Princeton highway and then later the Coquihalla Connector--shorter, not twisty and no rockslides to worry about, but breathtakingly foggy, stormy and fast.

My sister and her family and recently my parents have moved to Powell River, so while they are geographically closer to us, it takes two ferries and five hours to visit them--seven to nine hours if you have bad ferry karma, which I've experienced a few times. But it is a beautiful trip, especially the Earl's Cove to Saltery Bay crossing on a clear day.



Don't get me wrong, I dearly love Vancouver and all it offers and hope you feel that same way when you visit. I will no doubt be writing more about the quirks and delights of Vancouver, but I'm not one of those people who think city living is the end all and be all--it's just where I'm happiest at this time and that may change.

For example, stopping in at a bakery in Ladysmith on Vancouver Island this summer, made me want to move there for its brightly-coloured homes and the best cinnamon buns on the planet. Also, I love my little home in Yuma, Arizona that my parents let me plunk on their snowbird plot. It's when visiting in Yuma that I satisfy that need to live close by my family, even though it's a four hour plane trip including connections to Yuma airport or a three day RV ride. I'll write about Yuma in future--it's beautiful in an unconventional unWestcoast way.