So here is a story I wrote about Expo 86 that was chosen to be featured in The Province (a Vancouver newspaper) this Sunday.



EXPO 86 - The Beginning of Something

I was only eight years old. Up until a year earlier, I had been an only child. Now I was brother to my sister, Michelle. I didn’t know it then, but that was just the first of many exciting things to come. The year was 1986. Mr. T, Starship, and Top Gun were the coolest things on the planet. I remember my mom telling me that we would be expecting a lot of visitors from out of town that year. Several uncles, grandparents, aunts, and a guy I had never seen before all visited that year. I couldn’t figure out why they were all coming to Vancouver all of a sudden, but the moment I stepped foot onto the Expo 86 grounds; I realized why. They all came to see the most exciting thing on the planet... Expo 86.

My dad had just started a new job, my mom was pregnant again, and being a big brother was turning out to be pretty cool. Just as I thought things couldn’t get any better -- along came Expo 86 and the coolest mascot ever... Expo Ernie! I loved that robot and I loved seeing him at Expo. I must have visited Expo like a million times over the course of the summer and each visit was more special than the last. Never in my life had I seen so many people from so many different places in the World and never had I experienced so much entertainment and excitement. As far as I was concerned, Expo 86 was heaven.

Twenty years later, my dad is still working at the same company he started at in 1986 and I am the big brother of Clement and Michelle. Expo 86 is over, but in my household it still lives on. My dad tells of how it was the year he got his job, my mom tells of how it was the year she had my brother, my sister speaks of hugging Expo Ernie, and my brother knows it as the year he was born. For me and the city of Vancouver, Expo 86 will always be the beginning of something special.