Maxed Out

I was rambling down the mean streets of Tiny Town, tinnitus still hammering my ears from Chilliwack's reminder of why the 1970s were the forgettable decade - ooh, baby, dig your polyester - when I saw him coming.

Due to technical difficulties - my brain stopped working sometime during Chiliwack's numbing display of three-chord nostalgia, if you really need to know - I'm dishing up a rerun this week.

Perfect Partner, leader of the pack, tireless traveler, serial adventurer, corporate dropout, gardener, tax babe, ski bum, control freak and love of my life, finally ran out of energy from repeatedly kicking the crap out of the cancer that snuck into

Apology not accepted. Sorry, Bob. Bob MacPherson, RMOW's director of community - whatever that is - has fallen on his sword. Okay, he's gently stumbled on a very small Swiss army knife... with the blades and corkscrew carefully closed.

As hobbies, er, obsessions go, I guess fishing is no stranger than any other.

One of the favourite stories long-time locals love to tell relates to the early policing of the town of Whistler, or Alta Lake, or whatever the transition phase name of this place was long before it was a resort municipality.

A number of years ago, there was a popular cartoon theme in the pages of the New Yorker magazine. It always involved two characters, one a pilgrim on a quest of enlightenment, the other a wizened, bearded guru.

I've known for years there would always be things I don't understand, will never understand and probably, truth be told, simply can't understand. At the magical end of that continuum is, for example, purple green beans.

The history of marginalized peoples is a relentless march towards, well, the margins. Many problems arise from the intractable fact that the margins - geographically, politically, economically - keep shifting.

For the briefest of moments last week, I thought I was finally having one of those much-touted, eagerly anticipated acid flashbacks da man always warned us kids about.