Friday, November 24, 2006

During the olympics in Mexico in 1968 Rosemary and I attended many of the cultural olympic events. One of them was a classic Greek play with actors who came from Greece. I remember that the only two words I understood during the very long evening were nous and antropos.

In Vancouver around 1978 one of the closest kept little secrets was the existence of Parthenon Place in West Vancouver. I guess those who lived in West Vancouver knew of it and kept their mouths firmly shut. Those who might reveal the existence of the little Greek temple to the lesser mortals of Vancouver would have probably been ostracized and banished to cross First Narrows and live on the other side for life.


I discovered the pseudo Greek parthenon by accident from the air in a De Havilland Beaver coming back from Egmont. The story I was told was that a rich Greek businessman tried to placate his wife's homesickness and built her the temple that she could see from her window. The little temple was pretty well intact into the 90s and one day it was gone. A little memory of the place remains in a couple of streets called Parthenon Place and Parthenon Crescent.