Canada Thoughts: My Childhood BFF & Me

Happy Birthday, Barbara Ann!

We first met in a classic way for girls then: taking the No. 3 Road Bus to the stop nearest our High School in Suburban Vancouver.

Our parents owned houses five minutes from one another, in a new housing development where prices are now over a hundred times what these houses costs in the Seventies. The trees and gardens are fully grown, and the basements still flood.

What did we do then, as Canadian Teenager Girls?

We followed fashions carefully, and every month I went down to McCue's Drug Store to buy Glamour, and Mademoiselle, and Seventeen, with the money I earned babysitting.

Barb and I took bus trips downtown to Woodward's Department Store, to look at clothes, and have grilled cheese sandwiches and coffee, in the half circle cafe. We mostly went to Burnaby Mall to Ingledew's to buy shoes and purses.

We had troubles.

Her father had a serious drinking problem, and my father was a playboy who had recently left my beloved mother for his girlfriend. We were close to our mothers. We talked about religion. Barb had gone to a Catholic girl's school, a private school, the year before she moved to Richmond, her parents managed a huge hotel downtown, and her mom had had to work 24/7. My mom worked in a huge store too, Eaton's Department Store.

My dad had the best job, a Public Relations Manager for Air Canada, which gave us 4 FREE airline tickets to anywhere in the world that Air Canada flew too. I was deeply saddened by my parents' bitter divorce, yet maintained a somewhat false veneer of charisma at school, due to my trips to Paris and London. Halfway around the world from Vancouver.

Barbara and I were very close, from the start of our friendship. I believe in past lives, and have had dreams we were close in other lives. Many years later, when I had not seen her for 15 years, she picked me up at the bus stop on Kingsway, and we drove to her family's home on Selma, and we talked as though we had never left off our last conversation.

Of course, in our teens, we were obsessed with fashion, music, and crushes on various boys. Though we thought we were sophisticated, we were quite typical of most of the girls at our school. There were Bad Girls, who had gone too far with Boys, but we were not that far out. Still friendly with them.

In our last year of high school, we began dating. Barb's parents bought a motel on Kingsway, and I had to trek over to see her; I missed her. I slept there on weekends, and we made huge brunches of French Toast, butter, and maple syrup, washed down with pots of coffee. I admired her mother, who had a huge wall of classic and best-selling books in their living room.

My childhood friend, and all my connected memories, are not dramatic enough for a thrilling up-and-down story; sometimes I cherish most the serene and the simply happy. There are people we just feel so comfortable enough with, friends through the centuries.

Thinking of my friend, Barbara, hoping I will see her again.