varares Aes, a letath tats

4 - Friday, January 24, 1986 ~ North Shore News

Ha We tt ai

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Bob Hunter

¢ strictly personal e

READING about Emery Barnes trying to live

on the equivalent of welfare payments reminds
me of the time when I was down and out for

real in Vancouver.

it was the summer of
1960. 1 was 19 years old. I
had left Winnipeg in: the
hope of travelling on a
freighter from Los Angeles
.to Australia, and had saved
money by slaving away in a
slaughterhouse for nearly a
year. \
_ Alas, the guy f£ was
travelling with insisted we
stop in Las Vegas. He'd
discovered a perfect system
of winning at Black Jack.
He thought. :

The next morning, we
woke up hungover and
with barely enough money
left to get our tickets: to
L.A, extended to Van-
couver. There was no way
we could hope to pay for
passage on a ship to
Australia. Having lost a
year’s savings in a single
night of One-Armed Ban-
dits, Black Jack and the
roulette wheel, you can
imagine what a mood I was
in.

“There was a moment of
bad craziness when we sat

Fare includes:
C2) Round trip non-stop
train ticket to Blackcomb

down, sucking on salt
tablets in the desert heat,
and figured out the scale of
the disaster that had
befallen us. After the bus
tickets, we would have
something like ${00 left
each.

By the time we reached
Vancouver, | was down to
$65. My klutz of a friend
had even less.

Compared to nowadays,
1960 was a Golden Age in
terms of jobs. Yet even
then there weren’t that
many for a 19-year-old
day-dreamer heavily into
existential angst.

We got a room ina slum
hotel down on Hastings
and devised a plan. Well,
plan is probably too strong
a word. My idiot friend,
considering himself to be a
mental giant, calculated
that the human body only
really needed one hot dog a
day and all the water you
could*®drink in order to
survive for a month,

Technically, 1 believe he

and Whistler Mountains from

Vancouver

might have been right. But
it turned out there was a
catch. Being hungry
HURT!

After a few days of one
hot dog a day, I started to
feel woozy. I naturally
heaped up the dog with a
pound of relish and
mustard and ketchup and
onions. And water WAS
free. There were plenty of
outdoor fountains.

The room we were shar-

ing cost something like $5 a,

night. It was okay if you
didn’t mind the sound of
drunken .brawls down in
the pub and the smashing
of booze bottles out in the
Street after midnight.

Even if the
sounds outside didn’t keep

‘you awake, there was this

damned gnawing and
rumbling and echoing in
your tum-tum, this actual
low-level constant
background pain. [t was
worse than an itch, even,
There was nothing you
could scratch.

Since we'd‘ migrated
from Manitoba and (think-
ing. we were going to
Australia) hadn’t filled out
the proper ‘forms, in ade

It's the ideal package for the day skier. Cab
it or park free at the BC Rail Terminal in *

vance, there was no way we
could’ get ‘unemployment
insurance for a month. If
there was welfare money to
be had, it was news to me.
I just assumedtherewasn't.
This story has a happy
ending because I had rela-
tives in New Westminster.
After two weeks of hot
dogs and water, | decided
to swallow my pride (there

_being ‘nothing else to

swallow) and got change
on my last dollar to make a
phone call. Hi. You don’t
know me but I’m your
nephew and J just happen-
ed to be passing through
town...

They saved our lives. !
had learned the first lesson
of poverty. Pride goeth.
And that’s the’ real cruelty
of it. It’s not enough that it
hurts to not eat, it’s that,
sooner or later, you have
to beg.

And that’s the one thing
~—'the one big dimension
about poverty — that
Emery Barnes won't get to
experience. :

Bet he pigs out on a big
meal as soon as his time is
up. Want to lay any |
money?

North Vancouver. Take the 6:30 a.m. Ski Train
and you're in Whistler at 8:45 where you'll be
bussed to Blackcomb or Whistler lifts. Return

train leaves at 4:45 p.m. Unwind while you

, enjoy a licensed food :
and beverage service. Ski
train operates non-stop
Saturdays and Sundays
with a modified weekday
plan available.

Bus transfers to and from ski lifts
C) Lift ticket for Blackcomb and
Whistler Mountain

‘39.50

per person, round trip, all-inclusive
(train only tickets also available)

BC RAIL SKI TRAIN STARTS NOVEMBER 30, 1985.
BOOK YOUR TICKETS IN ADVANCE
_. BY CALLING BC RAIL — 984-5246.

|
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/ BC RAIL.
SWHISTLER RESORT

PARTNERS IN TOURISM ZZ