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School Life Page 5

Three Dapper Fellows

Well here are three dapper gentlemen. It's not difficult to determine the era, just look at the width of lapels and ties! Dave Krasney is on the left and Tim Ackerman in the middle with Don Gardner on the right.

Ballroom

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[Come softly...]

[Graduation's here...]

Bob Lawrie and Date

Among the couples a sharp looking Bob Lawrie appeared with his lady.

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Fishermen of Bowker Creek

Now here's something fishy. The noon hour angling in Bowker Creek has concluded with grins and a big fish. There were remarkable things to be seen in Bowker Creek, including certain tubular objects, but they did not number among them fish.

For those who have not been back to the alma mater, Bowker Creek has, like so much of our sixties world, been gentrified. Look at this. Masonry and Portland cement concrete walls have been installed, the creek bed has been stabilized, a weir has been installed to impound a pool in the creek bottom and a bridge has been built. "Riparian remediation" some consultant probably called it as he presented his plan to the municipality together with an invoice for 25 grand.

The bridge is unlike the functional timber structure upon which Murray Farmer held court after school. This one is a fine construction set on stone and Portland cement concrete and masonry. Here you can see it set in a tidy and leafy September park.

On the last visit by the author, it was clear that the area had been made to look somewhat like a park originally. At that time, however, the "park" was unkempt with a lawn of tufted grass strewn with litter. The impounded water was green with sheets of algae. The park was unoccupied but for two incautious mallards imperilling their health by swimming about in the putrid water observed by this lone wistful alumnus with hands thrust deep into pockets and shoulders hunched against the chill breeze whipping bits of paper across the lumpy grass.

This time, the grass, though brown, had been mown and the winter litter was gone. The green algae have succumbed, however, to be replaced with a brown, flocculent material adhering to the cobbles in the riverbed. The effect was a relentless expanse of brown moutonnée over the creek bottom. What's that brown stuff called, Dave Zirul? Hey, that brings back another Xerox memory. Dave was encountered during those years. He was working for an engineering firm doing environmental studies. His delightful wife fed Dave, their first baby and the author a fine dinner one evening at their residence.

On that first visit, it was very much a down at the heel park and one quite in keeping with the reputation of Bowker Creek as we knew it in the long ago.

Speaking of the long ago, here is Bowker Creek in 1963. The flats around the creek have been filled over the years to create playing fields. The creek banks so created are merely the fill faces reposing at their natural slope after the last freshet's scouring. There is no riparian remediation to Saanich's reeking sewer overflow channel here in 1963 beyond some very recently placed riprap in the middle of the photograph. It has been applied at a meander to arrest erosion of the field.

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