Dear Editor:
This has been the strangest Easter yet for yours truly. In Surrey we hear there were about 200,000 people on the streets to celebrate the annual Vaisakhi Parade.
Yet in New Westminster, the once popular vintage car parade is no more since the Hyack Society withdrew their funding.
On a nice day, more than 100 cars participated, including my own, while hundreds if not thousands of people lined the streets to watch it. The mayor, the police department, local politicians and the New Westminster beauty queen all participated.
This was more than a parade, it was a part of my (and maybe yours) heritage and culture. Now the only place you can see it is on a YouTube video.
Last year, I tried to revive this parade with the sponsoring vintage car club and New Westminster city councillor Chuck Puckmyer. It would have been a compromise effort with no road closures for the old cars. Thus it would have been really a drive, stopping at stop lights, instead of a parade.
The club expressed some interest but when it came to spending any money on it, such as for dash plaques, I could see that it wasn't going to happen since there was no reimbursement for me when I dared to ask for it on another matter.
In fact, I was made to feel unappreciated for my volunteer efforts for the club. And so I discontinued my discussions with Chuck and the parade fell through.
So if you wondered what happened to the vintage car parade in New Westminster, now you know what I know.
We can still enter our old cars in the Vancouver Vintage Car Easter Parade, leaving from Nat Bailey Stadium. But that's way out of the way for myself and many people. I look at the situation as a small part of the self-destruction of my own white Anglo-Saxon heritage and culture.
Now what do we do for Easter: smoke pot down at the Vancouver Art Gallery? Or I wonder if they accept old cars in the Vaisakhi Parade.
Jim Ervin, New Westminster
