I wish I was there this weekend..

https://www.fcancerconcert.ca/?r_done=1

This is on in Vancouver this weekend…wish I was there. A good cause, great tunes, and bands that I followed like a sick puppy when I was younger…..Colin James, Chilliwack, Doug and the Slugs, Prism…..I did follow them, to Vancouver’s west end and elsewhere on the left coast.

Yes my time in Vancouver……..sob, sob, sob…….

I don’t know if I ever talked about this, but, yep once I settled into the West Coast, I made the move from New Westminster to Vancouver’s West End…just off of Beach Avenue….

At that time (the Early 80s) New West was a little run down, the main street was not appealing….

It was a good location because I was close to work, just across a bridge…..but I was spending the majority of my time driving back and forth into Vancouver proper…..so yep, driving to the train yard at midnight, and driving home in the mornings was a challenge….but I was doing that anyway….so yep.

I’ll dig around a see if I can find pictures, but the 8th floor of a highrise on Harwood Street. A block away from English Bay, Sunset Beach….Davie, Denman….and walking distance to the Commodore Ballroom, the Railway Club, The Orpheum Theater….and Stanley Park. Loved it.

Weird thing….I was working mainly graveyard shifts, and had a hard time sleeping on my days off…..so I spent a lot of nights around downtown Vancouver after dark….which was so cool, cause I wasn’t alone.

I remember a few coffee shops and restaurants that stayed open all night long, and you’d see and meet some amazing people….and yep, women don’t have an Adam’s apple…I learned that then…but no big deal……

Right now for some reason I miss a burger with a slice of avocado on it..

And music everywhere…I think that the Vancouver folk fest had just started up down at Jericho Beach, it was cool to go down the day after, and there’d always be something…..a drum circle, a bunch of people with guitars…..

The only issue I had, the rent for my batchelor apartment was $400 a month…..yep, off of Beach Ave for $400…..and I got pissed off at having to pay $15 a month for a parking space…..yes, 1983. So pre-Expo 86, prices were still, I didn’t think so at the time, cheap…come on, $400…wonder what the rent is now huh?

So I moved after a year….to Kitsilano…..a house keeping suite in a huge house on W13th…..$150 a month!

No way huh?……free parking. And just up the hill from Granville Island, the beach….okay so uphill after, but that was perfect…shared the bathroom and one washroom, a tiny kitchen…but was so cool.

I miss it always….so yeah, Vancouver was my heaven..but, well, you get a girlfriend, then a wife, then kids, then you move..and then back to Aberta, to St Albert..I can still visit….but good memories.