Vancouver, British Columbia, The Fort Worth Of The North

This day just keeps getting better. I just got an email from a transplanted Fort Worth native now living in Vancouver, B.C. named Martha. Martha is an obviously very astute, articulate former Texan.

I think I've made mention, before, of Fort Worth's strange plan to build a little lake and some canals, called the Trinity River Vision. When this vision first came into view it was touted as a project that would turn Fort Worth into the Vancouver of the South.

The Vancouver of the South ridiculous propaganda was quickly dropped. I suppose because there were way too many people who had actually been to Vancouver, who knew there was not enough money on the planet to turn Fort Worth into the Vancouver of the South. You'd need large bodies of saltwater and towering mountains to turn Fort Worth into the Vancouver of the South. An impossible dream that has been scaled way back, with a price tag approaching 1 $billion.

You can build a new Dallas Cowboy stadium for that type of money.

That is an aerial view of Vancouver in the picture. If you really strain your imagination there is still no way you are going to be able to stretch if far enough to imagine Fort Worth looking like that.

And now the email from Martha with her last name removed...

Dear Sir:

My name is Martha, and I just came across your blog for the first time today. I was searching for 'things to do' in Fort Worth (over the Christmas holidays when everyone's in town), and found that there's a park with a lake I'd never heard of very near my parents' house. And since Oakland Park/Fosdic Lake has been the subject of many of your posts... ta-da! Google directed me to Durango Texas.

Mostly, this email is to let you know that I enjoyed reading your blog. FW was my childhood home, and I'd never lived more than 30 miles away from it until I went to Vancouver, BC, for graduate school a few years ago. Now, I know *you're* not happy living in North Texas, and I know that there are plenty of things to be unhappy *about* when living in North Texas, but when I was living in Vancouver, I found it quite impossible to describe what it was I loved or missed about my home-- particularly to Pacific NW natives who couldn't understand how the prairie was beautiful-- and your blog reminds me of the good and the bad and all the pain of displacement in a way that I find compelling and strangely heart-warming. All that to say, I felt just as damned living in BC as you do living in TX, and since we've both lived in both places... I feel a special bond. I hear/read what you're saying and I know what/where you're talking about and I feel more myself for it, so thank you.

Love,
Martha

Martha, just so you know, I know I may be a bit critical of things here in Fort Worth. And Texas. But, for the most part, I like it. But not nearly as much as I like Vancouver. That's one of my favorite towns. Always has been. It's only drawback is way too many Canadians live there.