No, I have never been to Greece. This was in West Vancouver and it was called Parthenon Place. All that remains is the street name. A Greek gentleman built the Parthenon replica for his wife who was nostalgic for her home land.

Because I read lots of science fiction in the 50s and 60s, in my mind is Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land. Vancouver now feels like that to me. My Rosemary who died almost five years ago would not recognize the city we lived in since 1975.

Parthenon Place was so beautiful that I took a friend, Theresa Brown, who had an amazing face and took photographs of her. She was the one who took the portrait of me holding a pipe in my left hand and a pewter cup with wine in the other. In another occasion I photographed in colour my friend Anita Roberts. 

Theresa Brown in Parthenon Place 

Anita Roberts in Parthenon Place 

My files are full of these photographs of a vanishing Vancouver. Because I am 83 I am now disdainful of my legacy. I simply do not care what happens to all my photographs.

Like in much part of the world fame in Vancouver only arrives when you are dead. I have pleasant and long phone chats with George Bowering and George McWhirter. Who are they? Bowering was the first Canadian Poet Laureate and McWhirter the first Vancouver Poet Laureate. I could be wrong but somehow along with journalism, poetry and culture is moribund in this city of blue/grey tall condos full of Teslas in their underground parking.