After a long week in Calgary, Pam and I returned to Vancouver via the Yellowhead Highway through Jasper and then south on the Number 5 from Valemont. It was a lovely drive, although the route is considerably slower than the southern route, it is so worthwhile! We saw lots of wildlife including a couple of bears, cariboo, several deer, and lots of mountain goats. We appreciated the slower speeds to savour the views.

During our visit to Calgary, an old friend and I arranged for a group of old rocker friends to get together – thirty years later. Always funny to see who got the baldest and fattest (I think I won both awards!) I was deeply saddened by some of the tragic stories, but also greatly heartened by others.

Everyone has their tragedies, of course, and it was tough to talk about some of the mistakes we’ve made. And certainly the old pecking order came out. Some of the things said were so offensive, you wonder if people are just naturally that rude in Alberta, or were my “old friends” just….?

One guy tried to tell me he could get in his car, go down to the library, ask the librarian to look something up for him, she would print it off, and he’d have that done faster than using his “so-called modern internet connection.” After picking myself up off the floor, I suggested to him that she was probably looking up his request on the internet, he shook the pile of papers in my face. I knew there were Luddites around, just amazed to see one of my old friends as one!

Coming from a city that has been awash in color and flowers and greenery for months, then driving through picturesque mountains, with wonderful wild flowers in bloom, it’s shocking to come to a dull drab city like Calgary, with it’s unending, sandy colored flat lands, pockmarked with pot hole filled streets, covered in loose, dusty gravel, with huge pickup trucks driven by aggressive rednecks careening down narrow streets, covered in snow. Yeah that’s right, snow in May – choosing to live in Calgary is a bit like choosing a toothache. Who chooses a toothache?

They love to talk about their strong economy, as if pulling oil out of the ground is an economy. When Alberta has more unemployed than Quebec it’s not hard to see why people are leaving in droves. We got sick of passing Albertans with their U-Hauls full of stuff heading to BC. You certainly don’t stay in Calgary because it’s pretty!

They sneer at West Coast liberals, proud to be unabashedly Conservative – while smoking their pot and needing details on how soon they’d get pot stores like Vancouver has had for years. Their sneers at Justin Trudeau were based merely on his parenthood. And of course they  assumed I voted Liberal. (I did not.)

Ironically, it is Trudeau who will actually make a very real difference in most of their lives. The removal of criminal prosecutions for marijuana is so long overdue, it doesn’t even need stating. Some of them suffer from pot convictions. Harper’s rants on marijuana – sigh – typical Alberta redneck bullshit. No basis in fact, which of course helps in Alberta, where most problems are “solved” with out facts.

And these were guys who listened to the Ramones, and still call themselves rockers… sigh. Old people…