When I was living in Mexico in the 60s and 70s there was a lovely boulevard in the Mexico City neighbourhood of Churubusco called La Taxqueña. The local government decided to change the name to Avenida Miguel Ángel de Quevedo. Most people insisted on calling the avenue by its real name including the most important taxi drivers.

I will associate the above with a lovely lunch I had (and distinguished guests) at the Terminal City Club yesterday hosted by former mayor Sam Sullivan and his wife Lynn Zanatta. Sullivan and a few important friends have started an organization called Kumtuks (and Indigenous word that means wisdom/knowledge). Its purpose it to find a middle road between extremes that argue as to who is right and or saying the real truth. The plan is to make videos to promote the ideas in social media and relevant media.

The speakers were Michael Stephen, John Bonnett,Yuta Shimizu,Margareta Dogval,Geoff Russs and Mark Milke. The first two caught my interest and in particular Michael Stephen. He read from many books, quotes that Joseph Trutch, 1st Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia, in office 5 July 1871 – 27 June 1876 was not the villainous man we have been led to believe. It seems that all those bad things happened after he was out of office and then dead. Stephen peaked my interest, as I live in Kits on 7^th Avenue almost corner with what was formerly called Trutch. I asked my neighbours about the name change. Because my neighbour friends all live on 7^th they all told me, “Alex we are lucky that we live on 7^th as the name change will affect the property documents of all those who used to live on Trutch.

The second speaker", John Bonnet is a teacher and instructor and his attempts to teach truths are sometimes most unpopular. His motto from George Gershwin is “It ain’t necessarily so.”

I spoke with him and told him of my problems teaching at an American High School in Mexico City in the early 70s. In one class, Ancient History, one day I told my class that the Israelites since they had lived by force in Egypt for some years, Herodotus had revealed that perhaps the Israelites had adopted the Egyptian custom of circumcision. I then asked a Jewish student to stand up and to give us a clinical definition of the term. On the next day I was summoned to the office of the female principal who was a member of the right-wing organization Daughters of the American Revolution. She told me that she had heard that I was teaching sex in my Ancient History Class. I was told to stop and to no longer include Herodotus in my course.

I will not go here to all the stuff circulating in Canada and in our province that is really not all that true. But I would like to add how it is that in Latin America we deal with the “Columbus Problem”. Columbus Day South of the Río Bravo is called El Día de la Raza. October 12 celebrates the fact that the intermarriage between Spaniards and Indigenous Peoples produced a new race – the mestizos. But now Columbus statues are being torn down.

Few know why Frida Kahlo had a moustache. The Indigenous Peoples of Mexico don’t usually have body hair except on their head and down there. Kahlo wanted to show off that she had lots of Spanish blood. While in Mexico in the 50s and 60s I saw women with lovely legs in fishnets. Their legs were unshaved. They were boasting.

I wish Sam Sullivan’s organization lots of luck in order for them to set the records straight. In our age of extreme polarization this is a necessary task.

For me the new Patullo Bridge will be the New Pattullo Bridge. This is because I am old fashioned. The Cambie Street Bridge for me will always be the Connaught Bridge.