THE OLD ‘PICK UP STICK DAYS
The morning show on Victoria’s C.J.V.I. included live piano, and from the C.B.U. studios of the Hotel Vancouver, I still remember The Rhythm Pals, MIKE, MARK AND JACK! . So much local talent hit the air, those fond memories take some of us BACK?
Music was less on vinyl and shared with a minimum of commercial ZEAL. Joe and Jane public could afford to go to ISY’s and THE CAVE. There was something so special about the old Vancouver you could FEEL.
Do you remember a music store called Kelly’s, when summer seasons at Theatre Under The Stars was BIG NEWS? Jack Wasserman’s column filled up that entertainment hunger in our BELLIES then not so slowly, roof top aerials, ‘rabbit ears’ and black and white television sets that our parents learned to USE. Inkwells and blotter rolls became OLD HAT. Pulling in a few channels on 17 inch Westinghouse, RCA and Philcos was amazing TECHNOLOGY. Do you recall when that baseball team called the Vancouver Mounties went up to BAT? Adults were beginning to ‘bust their brains’ trying to comprehend an unusual new word called PSYCHOLOGY. Burgers were 50 cents at WHITE SPOT. Soon the Bayshore Inn hit the scene along with TRADER VICS! Guess some of us are CAUGHT by a time warp. We still remember playing PICK-UP- STICKS!
Joni Mitchell’s line about ‘you don’t know what you’ve got, til it’s gone’ sure hits ‘big time’ reflecting about how lucky ‘this kid’ was living down by the waterfront in Gibsons Landing, in the nineteen fifties. We rented the bottom suite of an old house (still there today hardly changed at all!), just a few steps from the beach and Keats Island in the background. What hits hard is going back for a visit. Time has practically stood still there until you see yourself in a mirror. Ouch!
Joni Mitchell apparently bought a place on the Sunshine Coast-in Robert’s Creek. Unbelievable, eh? Very few children in today’s society live by the waterfront and live close to a ‘parking lot.’ The following lyrics flowed with these tides of reflection:
SORTING OUT A FEW PRIORITIES
A Squamish wind is a blowin, a pod of ‘Black Fish’ you can SEE. Doing ‘loop de loops’, there’s a tugboat a Davis raft ‘TOWIN’. The scene about as awesome as memory can BE.
A whale of AMAZEMENT, what looking back sometimes PROVIDES. For us seniors, it can be commercial free ENTERTAINMENT, like a pocket watch that, with time, UNWINDS.
Keats Island on one side, the beach in Gibsons, outside our WINDOW. The doors to these memories now increasingly open WIDE, wondering where on earth did those YEARS GO?