A quick trip down memory lane in Surrey, BC
I got home yesterday from a quick trip to Surrey (a suburb of Vancouver), where I went for the 50th anniversary reunion of my high school graduation class. From our little school, Princess Margaret Senior Secondary, 97 people (including some spouses) had signed up to come. It was wonderful, and it was overwhelming.
I flew from Whitehorse to Vancouver on Air North’s 07:30 flight on Thursday. The weather forecast for the entire 3-day trip was for clouds and showers, but the rain in Whitehorse was very close to being snow when I left home for the 15-minute drive to the airport. I shot the first photo as our Boeing 737 was being pushed back. The ATR 42-300 would be leaving for Dawson shortly.
For about 20 minutes, the clouds cleared enough to get a view of the peaks below, which I never get tired of seeing. The next photo was shot just north of Stewart.
Vancouver has one of my favourite airports. I love the architecture, the fact that it never feels crowded, and the art. Much of the art is quite incredible, like the Rivers Monument by Marianne Nicolson. Each pole is a cut through of the Columbia and Fraser River systems, with the top of the column representing the surface and the bottom of the column the riverbed. I was in no hurry, and spent quite a while with this piece.
I soon had my rental car from Thrifty – a VW Jetta that I immediately disliked. Are they as cheap as they feel? Even the radio was junk. Anyway, I had time to kill before I could check into my hotel in Langley, so went to Boundary Bay Airport, where I did some advanced training (multi-engine and much higher speeds) in 1987, in a Grumman Cougar, a beauty of an aircraft. The memorial in the next photo honours the 29 airmen who died while serving at RCAF Station Boundary Bay. The Skyhawk Restaurant in the new terminal was an excellent place for an early lunch.
Going back to my car, I noticed that this Solo 1-person electric car had arrived. It’s really cool for $20,000, but the company’s other two cars are bloody awesome! Especially the electric 356 Porsche replica (for $124,900 🙂 ). Update: only the Solo is available now (Feb 2023).
I spent a fair bit of time at Crescent Beach in the ’60s, so went for a look at what 50+ years has done there. There are actually surprisingly few changes – in the village, new homes have largely been done in styles that fit in very nicely, and the multi-million-dollar ones along the way are well hidden in the forest. The photo shows Blackie Spit Park, which was a popular party spot in my day, and in more recent years has been a nude beach. Now it’s a lovely, heavily-protected area for migratory birds – stay on the path, and dogs aren’t allowed.
This photo popped up in my Facebook Memories as I was writing this post, so it’s obviously supposed to be included 🙂 From September 1969, this was bandit drag racing at its finest, on Latimer Road in Langley. A few days before I shot this photo, I had bought a 1969 rs SS Camaro from Westminster Motors for $4,395 plus tax. In less than 2 years it was a wheel-standing beast, and I spent many nights at these bandit strips.
At 1:00, I reached my motel, the Days Inn in downtown Langley. Langley had been chosen for the reunion rather than Surrey because it has better facilities and isn’t quite as crazy-busy as Surrey.
Room 313 was exactly as you’d expect in a hotel like this – immaculate and well equipped. When I fired up my laptop to do some work, the wifi was fast, so life was good.
The view wasn’t inspiring, so there was nothing to distract me from important things – including an afternoon nap before the reunion banquet that evening.
Another of the grads and I had planned to get photos of each person as they arrived, but that didn’t work out, so the first order of business once everyone (we thought) had arrived was getting a group photo. One of the spouses got a photo of me setting the shot up (thanks, Bob). Yes, I was having fun.
There are only 60 people in the photo, so it seems that many people who registered didn’t come. A 10-second timer on the shutter allowed me to get into the 3 shots I took.
We had a 20th anniversary reunion in 1988, and it didn’t seem like most people had changed that much from high school.
The added 30 years had changed us all, but many are aging very well. One of the things that was quickly confirmed is that good friends are always good friends – after 50 years, conversation with them is still easy. It was a wonderful evening, and I was really glad I came down for it. It was overwhelming, though, and I didn’t get to talk to nearly as many people as I had hoped to. I hoped to rectify that somewhat at a school tour the next day.
On Friday, I drove around the Newton and Scottsdale parts of Surrey looking for anything familiar, but it’s all gone. The next photo shows the lot where the home I grew up in used to be.
The school that we attended was bulldozed many years ago, but when some of us gathered in the office of the new Princess Margaret Senior Secondary School for a tour, I was pleased to see a series of paintings of the school we knew.
The school principal, Paulo Sarmento, had offered to show us around the school. I was very quickly impressed by his love of what he’s doing, and by his respect for the school’s history.
They don’t build schools like they used to! I knew from touring my grand-daughters’ high school about 3 years ago that it’s a different world now, but it was interesting to see this direct comparison. The murals in the gym are wonderful – a lion has always been the school emblem.
One of the teachers dug the school yearbooks from 1966, ’67 and ’68 out of the library archives, and we spent a while going through them.
Although they were damaged while being moved from the old school, all of the old class photos have been restored, some with huge effort, and are hanging. A current student spent quite a while talking with us there. It occurred to me that this visit would be like the Class of 1918 coming to visit us in our final year there – it seemed to be a big deal to everyone we met, students and teachers alike.
We interrupted a few classes, and had fun doing it 🙂
The main hallway is beautiful. There are 1,300 students at Princess Margaret now, about double what there was in 1968, I think.
At the end of the tour, Mr. Sarmento (that sounds funny but “Paulo” doesn’t seem right 🙂 ) presented each of us with a t-shirt that proclaims “Once a Lion Always a Lion”. Peggy and John allowed me a photo of theirs. What a great souvenir – very appropriate.
We gathered for a group photo at a totem pole that was created many years ago by students working with elders from the Semiahmoo First Nation. It has a very interesting history, and has survived two attempts to destroy it.
Fred John was my math teacher for this first 3 years of teaching – he also taught art. At 77, he’s still teaching, and was a big part of our reunion. He’s a good example of the quality of teachers we had 50 years ago.
The special needs class has been given control of the school sign on 72nd Avenue, and told to have fun with it. They are indeed having fun with it, no doubt putting a smile on many faces of people driving by! 🙂
The school tour ended up being over 2 hours long. That night, I went to another airport restaurant, Adrian’s @ The Airport in Langley. It was a fine way to end the day, and brought me back to the Langley airport the next morning.
Langley (Langley Regional Airport – YNJ) was my primary airport during my flying years. Much of my training beyond my basic private licence as done here at Skyways, whose office is now home to Adrian’s restaurant. When I owned my own plane, it was tied down here. So in a light rain on Saturday morning, I wandered around the airport. As with everything else I’d been seeing the past couple of days, not much was familiar.
The Canadian Museum of Flight, which I put many volunteer hours working at, is now based at Langley. They didn’t open until 10:00, which was too late for me, but I had a look around at what I could see. One of the gems in the collection is CF-PWH, “Spirit of the Skeena”, the oldest surviving DC-3 in Canada. Built on February 24th, 1940, for American Airlines as “Flagship Texas”, she later served in the USAF, and with Trans Alaska Airlines, Queen Charlotte Airlines, Pacific Western Airlines, Great Northern Airways, and Trans Provincial Airlines. Her flying career ended in 1972.
I had thought about doing some more wandering, but the rain wasn’t really conducive to that, so I returned to the Vancouver airport a couple of hours early. I can always amuse myself there watching airplanes. This Air Canada Dreamliner, C-FGDT, was throwing up a good spray on her takeoff run.
Even in the secure area, you can wander for what feels like miles, and there’s always something going on. My Air North flight was at gate B-18, in an area where most of the other gates had WestJet 737s at them.
We boarded the plane at 1:00, but were delayed for a long time. Within a couple of minutes of taking off just before 2:00, we had vanished into the low clouds. But I had seen a forecast showing sunshine in Whitehorse so had high hopes for my window seat. Just north of Stewart, it started to clear, and a little while later, the community of Telegraph Creek, badly hit by wildfires a few weeks ago, was below.
Atlin Lake often provides a stunning view, and yesterday was one of these. Teresa Island is in the centre of the photo, the Llewellyn Glacier is on the left, and Juneau is on the shore of the distant salty waters.
Looking down on the community of Atlin a few seconds later.
One final shot of Lewis Lake, commonly called Lewes Lake, as we descended into Whitehorse. Cathy had been getting Bella and Tucker excited about my arrival, and I got a wonderful greeting from my family <3
There is now talk about planning more reunions for the Class of ’68 – every 5 years perhaps, or even small annual ones. There are many people I’d still like to talk to, so I hope these happen. Except for that, the odds of me returning to Surrey are pretty much zero – the world I knew no longer exists.
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