Lyin' Eyes ( by the Eagles)

It's the summer of 1977!  I've finished my first year of University and took the train back to Vancouver with all of my "stuff" to spend the summer with my mom in her new store in Princeton.  It was the May long weekend and I took to the bus from Princeton to Vancouver to spend the weekend with my aunt and uncle in North Vancouver. My uncle offered to pick me up at the bus station and deliver me up to North Vancouver.  He took me out for dinner first - The Spaghetti Factory down in Gastown - and I am quite sure that anyone around us would have thought that we were out on a dinner date judging by how he acted. He was laughing and making balloon animals and just generally trying to "impress" me. There was that "weird" feeling inside again but I had no words to explain it.  On one hand it was very nice to be taken out to dinner and doted on but on the other hand it did not feel right in my gut.  Lesson learned - always trust your gut feelings - your gut is your second brain.

After dinner we proceeded to drive over to North Vancouver.  I know that he knew where he was supposed to be going - he'd lived in Vancouver for probably 20 years at that point.  How hard is it to find a street that is one block off of Mountain Highway for heaven's sake?  I know that now,  but at the time I had no clue where we were or where we were supposed to be going.  It was quite dark out by that time and he was making a big fuss over not being able to find the street - driving around and around the dark subdivisions of the North Shore area making turn after turn.  By that point I was really getting scared - I've never been the person who finds getting lost just part of the whole adventure!  I suggested that we stop and ask for directions at a gas station and it was clear to him that I was not at all comfortable.  Amazingly, within about 5 minutes - presto - there we were at Pierard Drive!  There is no doubt in my mind that he was driving in circles for the sole purpose of trying to find an opportunity or the guts to make a move on me. Sunday afternoon my aunt and uncle dropped me off at an open house you were having for you to take me to dinner at then over to catch my bus home. 

And all the time that we were driving around.........he had a cassette tape of the Eagles playing.......a black car with burgundy interior.........some things you just never forget.

Horse Drawn Sleigh Rides.........

Seventeen years old........in 1976 when I was 17 I was more like today`s 14 year old.  I was not a social butterfly in high school, I was not at all the important parties on the weekend, I never came to school on Monday with a low cut shirt and a neckful of hickies to show everyone - my big claim to fame was that I frequented the indoor smoking area - wow! I babysat for most of the local RCMP families, I taught piano and theory lessons during the week and practiced my own piano studies for my exams, I worked weekends at a local drugstore.  In hindsight - my mom had it pretty easy with me!  When I graduated from high school I knew 1 thing - I was going to the University of Sask. enrolled in the College of Education.  Not because I had always dreamed of being a teacher and going away to school......because my dad said I was going to university and there would be no discussion.  Why the College of Education - because I had no idea what choices I might have had, my Grandmother had taught school forever ( even in the little one room school house) and because somehow I won the local Teacher`s Scholarship for a first year Education student. My life was planned out except for one thing.........I didn`t plan it.  I was homesick, I didn`t want to be there, I was so socially and emotionally delayed - I was the proverbial fish out of water.

Needless to say I was one happy person to board a plane out of Saskatoon in December of 1976 to go to Coquitlam and be with my family for a month.  I had rec`d letters from my mom every week sharing with me her plan to buy a store in Princeton  - a gift and grocery store - the big city of Coquitlam was not for her and my uncle, being a real estate agent, had found the perfect place for her in Princeton.  We made a trip up there during my stay that Christmas and oddly enough the one very vivid memory of that trip that I have - my uncle got into the back seat and specifically asked me to sit beside him.  Weird but very complimentary in a back handed way. We all had Christmas dinner together and as a family spent more time together thru out that month.  After I flew back to Saskatoon and settled in for the second half of my first year a strange letter came in the mail one day.  My uncle wrote to me that he was envious of all of the boys at University who would be the ones to sit beside me during the long cold winter evenings and go on horse drawn sleigh rides with me.  Hello, I was in Saskatoon going to school - not filming an episode of Little House on the Prairie.  And....how weird is it that your uncle is envious of boys being around his niece.........at the time I had no clue just how weird this was........I was being groomed and I had this person who was only 12 years older than me writing to me at university.  Oh God how I wish I could turn the clock back 35 years. 

Stalking his prey, tiptoeing around in the forest, carefully covering his tracks and camoflauging his true existance,  tossing out bits of tempting treats to lure his prey out into the open and away from the safety of the herd.....always adjusting his view in the sights of his rifle....the hunter waits patiently in silence for that one perfect shot..............