Vancouver Island BC

Hello and Good morning!

 

This is about my LIFE and my time on Vancouver Island in the years 1978 til 1982, as we arrived in Canada as Landed Immigrant on October 24.1978.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was probably the best time of my life as a teenager! WHY? Well, let us see and start with the obvious.

 

• I was 15 when I got to BC, so I got my driver’s license at 15! How cool is that? Sure I was only allowed

  

  to drive with an adult until I was 16, but still, it was great to drive. So when we got our first Pick-Up Truck for Firewood and hauled materials to renovate and add another wing to our house on Sproat lake, it was a short time to wait, to drive the Ford F-150!  The top picture shows the F-150, which was the workhorse. It never broke down, and it always started! The white bumper was built by me in my metal works class! The beefed-up F-250 I bought some time later, with my own money. And the last pic is our renovated house when it was all done. More about that in a bit.

 

 

Living on SPROAT LAKE, how cool was that? Very cool!

• Why you might ask. Well the endless forests, the amazing Cedar trees, the clean water in Sproat Lake, the endless water activities, and having finally my 1st dog, was just like living in heaven for me, having moved from an Apartment complex in Munich Germany.
• Maybe the MOST IMPORTANT factor was that my Hay fever Allergy was GONE! What a relief. So LIFE was really great.
  

 

• Going to school was also a HUGE difference, a mostly positive one. This was due to the stressful school system in Germany, where kids at the age of 10 are already classified and have to decide what kind of school they will go to.
• There is the HAUPTSCHULE. This is for kids who were slow and sort of stupid, at least when it came to learning. Then there was the REALSCHULE, which was the “middle” alternative for kids who were not smart but were also not stupid. And finally, there was the GYMNASIUM. This one was for the smart kids, the ELITE, our future doctors, lawyers, etc. So when a kid went to a Gymnasium, parents were PROUD. Only the kids had the pressure of keeping up with the system, which of course treated all equally, even though many kids in a Gymnasium are not geniuses.

 

SCHOOL In Canada- Port Alberni – Vancouver

 

• Going to school in Canada, Vancouver Island was a real relief from the stress that I had in school, back in Germany. And NO, I did not go to a Gymnasium in Germany, I went to a Realschule.
• Now there was ONLY one school for everybody. The school, where I went 1st was called A.W. Neill

  

  Elementary School. They immediately put me in grade 9.  In Germany, I was in grade 7, but the curriculum was 2 years ahead in Germany, so I got upgraded!

 

 

• Later I entered Alberni Secondary School, where I graduated. Well let’s put it like this, I did graduate from Alberni District School, but me and 2 other

  

  friends decided to move to the big city called Vancouver, so I sort of failed my classes on purpose, so I can move to Vancouver and redo some of my courses in 6 months to OFFICIALLY graduate, which I then did.

 

• The school I went to in Vancouver was the Centennial School in Port Coquitlam 43. The principal at that time was Mr. G.M. Paton…probably not related to GM! The 2 idiots who went with me, were Bill and Chris.

  

 

• The school was now basically so much more fun. The reasons were simple.

1. Basically, most teachers were fun. I said most, not all. Sure they were strict, but they were also fun to talk to, unlike in Germany where teachers are, let’s just say, TEACHERS.
2. As I remember, students could choose some courses themselves, which was great! So IF you were a Physics nerd, then you chose Physics. I was NOT. And my favorite subjects were: Metalworks, Wood Works, Sports, and Geography. And the other MUST DO subjects, I just passed.
3. In high school, I played more tennis in the last quarter, since I took all the major subjects in the first 3 quarters. That way I had a lot more time to play tennis.
4. I loved my metal crafts and woodwork class! So many USEFUL things I made, a few I still have. I loved to be able to CREATE things with metal and wood, and our teacher back then was really cool.
5. Being able to eventually DRIVE to school with my own car, how great is that?! So that was great, to be independent at an early point in my life. I did have summer JOBS who paid for these hobbies.
6. Last but not least, me and my close friends, did a lot of “crazy” stuff in school. I believe that today is very different for students now, even in Port Alberni, since Life has gotten just a bit more competitive and harder to GET a job, or just earn money these days.

 

Let’s Put This Into Perspective, At Least MY Perspective:

 

• To Put It Into Perspective, I have to Quote Albert Einstein…or let me just put that picture of him with that quote right here!
• So what does this really mean, at least for ME? Well for me the meaning is simple. The ONLY USEFUL things that I learned in my 12 years of school, all around the globe is this: Some History, some Geography, and many useful things from metal works and woodworks. From Biology to Physics and Chemistry there is NOTHING left, and MATH, I did NOT like it, and I almost failed, just like Albert Einstein, who also did not do very well in his early stages in school in Zürich.
• I basically don’t remember anything that was taught to me in these 12 years, other than what I just mentioned. So Learning useless facts was just not for me!
• Sorry to ALL the teachers I gave a hard time to! Really. I only realize that today, while I am writing this blog, most teenagers are basically ” Clueless ” which is a much nicer word than Stupid. And that I was and I guess most of my classmates and most teenagers all around the world. We just Do NOT understand the GROWN UP world, and we just want to have FUN, which I certainly had.
• THANK YOU teachers of Port Alberni! I owe you one.

 

HAVING FUN ON SPROAT LAKE!

 

• This was just great. Growing up in Port Alberni and on Sproat Lake was just AMAZING. Today I know this. This was

  

  due to the many activities on the lake. To watch the water bombers fill up their tanks and TAKE OFF was fantastic to watch.

 

• All the water activities were also amazing. Water skiing, windsurfing, and swimming of course! Well here are some pictures, of me having fun fun fun.

 

• What a great and fun time I had. My brother only came to visit us for about 6 months, since his world was in Munich. He was a CITY BOY, and he did not really like the outdoor stuff as I did.
• Of course, I went fishing with my uncle and his friends. That was also something I enjoyed, but not as much as the other activities on the water. I bought my own Water-Ski and paid for pretty much all my own hobbies with the money I made in summer.

 

My MAIN income was not my summer jobs, which included roofing jobs, and working actually when my brother was there, a new housing project in Port Hardy for about 2-3 weeks, installing gutters and downpipes!

 

• Nope, my main income was selling CEDAR SHINGLES to people who needed a roof. This was my

  

  the biggest source of income. I went into the wilderness, and cut the already cut down CEDAR logs into smaller pieces, which I then put onto my truck and when home, cut them into shingles!

 

• My mom always freaked out, when I left, since I was gone for half a day or sometimes longer. The STIHL chainsaw, I used was huge, and If something had happened in the woods then I would have or could have died since there were NO CELL Phones back then.
• But that was the risk I took, and at 16/17 years old, you just Do NOT think about the “what if” scenario. All was well, by the way, and nothing ever happened, since God still had one special task for me left. To BE A FATHER. The hardest JOB in the world. I’ll come to that in another post, which will be dedicated to my father!

 

 

Our House On Sproat Lake

 

The house my father bought on Vancouver island, Sproat Lake was kinda old and too small for us four. I guess my dad believed that my brother would eventually also move there and live there. That was not the case, but my dad started Renovation on the house, which he bought for, and that is a question, I can not ask him anymore.

 

• A building permit we did get, and for that, I believe my Dad paid about $20 CAN. That my dad told me, in one of our few last conversations. My dad must have been in his late forties, about 48/49 years old, and he loved doing this kinda work, since he and my mom had a similar project back in the Czech Republic, when they also build their own house, with the difference that ALL THE WORK was done by hand, and there was NO Home depot to go and buy stuff if you needed something. I absolutely loved home depot when I lived in Miami, but there was no such thing back in those days in Port Alberni. But, we still MADE it work!

 

• We started renovation shortly after my dad bought it, and things went pretty fast, especially when my

  

  brother came. We had NO help from anybody, especially my (retarded uncle ) Karl, who never showed up to help, not even to offer his help/advice. I helped my uncle all the time when he was working on his house since this was before we started our own renovation. Every spare minute I had, I spent there, helping him! Oh well, he was and probably still is an idiot…

 

• So construction was going well and the only machine we used was a cement mixer. Other than that it was all done by us. Pretty cool right?

 

• At this point, I am really not sure how long it took, but many projects, I finished on my own. My brother left, and my dad was in Germany doing his photography thing, that he could just not let go of.
• The house was eventually finished and it just looked great from the inside and outside!

  

  

   

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Once the house was finished we enjoyed the house for a number of years, but it was SOLD eventually. I guess my father thought it was time TO MOVE again. Especially for me, he did not see a future in Port Alberni. Well, that was my father. He only wanted what was best for me, like most parents. At this point in my life, I really do not know if it was…

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• At some time during those years living on Vancouver Island, Sproat Lake, I tried to grow some weed. Well, it did grow, and I think at some point, I even tried it out, I think. Not sure after 40 years. My mom did DISCOVER the plant at some point and asked me what that is! To this day, I am just NOT sure, IF she knew what it was or not. I think she did…can’t ask her. Sorry, mom!

Here a few more pics for fun and laughter. It is really crazy how TIME just flies…

 

And these were several years of My Life in Vancouver Island!

Sure HOPE you enjoyed the reading!

If you are wondering what I have been up to these past 2 to 3 years, you can read that on one of my posts. 

I have been working on a website that deals with INSOMNIA. Millions of people are suffering from it, especially since March 2020! An event that shocked the world!

Hopefully by now many have realized that it was the biggest SCAM in the last 100 maybe even 500 years in our history. If you still believe your Government that it was all about YOUR Health, oh well, so be it. I will not try to convince anybody anymore, especially after 2 years.

So here is my website that deals with insomnia and its root problems. Finding them and proposing INDIVIDUAL Solutions to each person. Have a peek. 🙂 Thanks