HEEDING THE order “Go west, middle-aged man,” I walked along the avenue, thinking that I ought to pick up something to go for my lunch. As I strolled, I continued to muse on the rapid pace of North American progress.
Vancouver – that sexy metropolis of reckless real estate speculation – demolished the oldest Pantages vaudeville theatre in North America in 2011. And when the wrecking ball crashed into the side of the grand old playhouse, what sound came out? The long, mournful cry of the railroad whistle of the trains that carried the vaudevillians around on the circuit, Winnipeg to Calgary to Edmonton to Vancouver – all those bridge games in the club car, all that cigarette smoke, all that scenery! And the granite railroad hotels, those glamorous tombs of opulence. The very British statio
