I got a message on Facebook yesterday from Tommy, a classmate from elementary school.  Apparently he’s Tom now but I’ll always think of him as soccer-loving Tommy.  I had a total crush on him in grade 5.  We lost track of each other after grade 7.   It was so good to hear from him. 

I grew up in the burbs outside Vancouver.  He was one of the kids from Barnston Island, a small island in the Fraser River.  There was only one bus that came to our school and it brought the white farm kids and the native kids over on the ferry from the island. 

My friend Corina and I decided to take our bikes there one day.  We rode to the ferry and took it over.  The ferry is actually a tugboat pushing a small barge and it only takes the trip across when people are at one stop or the other waiting for it.  Then we biked the flat country roads passing the farms and fields and houses.  We weren’t really looking but we found Tommy’s house.  His last name was handpainted in black on the mailbox.  Tommy’s house was a really tiny, really rustic place. 

I remember we stopped and looked and we were really surprised.  Me and my friends all had big suburban kind of houses.  For my family it was more about family-size and land availability, not so much the size of our bank account.  But it was my first lesson in Things Aren’t the Same For Everyone. It also gave me the first feeling that Things Are Different If You’re Native.

I have no connection to the place I grew up anymore.  I lived there from age 4 to 21 or so and could not wait to get away.  I moved to the city the minute I could.  My family moved away shortly after and now I’m even farther, on the other side of the country.   I guess that’s why it was good to hear from Tommy.  To feel some connection to a place that was Home at one time.  It sounds like Tommy’s doing great, he’s in Vancouver and still plays soccer.

I drove past the home where I grew up 5 years or so ago.  It’s exactly the same and so is the area.  It’s still a rural suburban kind of place.  The homogenous housing subdivisions haven’t encroached yet.  The Italian family up the road still have sheep in their yard. The 10 acre horse farm is still around the corner. 

Corina is the only other person whose friended me from my elementary days.  She still lives in there and told me that they’re building a new bridge across the Fraser river.  The highway that attaches to it will probably cut right through where I used to live.  I just hope they don’t build it too close to Barnston island.