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ANNUAL RECEPTION ON FEBRUARY 20TH This went extremely well and Eileen thanks Betty O'Sullivan, Betsy Lee, Jay Fawell, Wanda Osborne, Natalie Logan, Marguerite Cassetta and humble self for their help. THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY Did you find that page 2 of your February Newsletter was missing? If so, we do apologize. There was some kind of hiccup in the printing process covering the reverse side of the first sheet and it ended up blank. Those affected seem to have been members whose last names began with "S" and so on to the end of the alphabet -1 was one of the "victims." We missed out on the first part of the "Nun's Prayer," also some other items. To be on the safe side, we are sending everyone page 2 with this month's Newsletter. Unfortunately some of the Museum events mentioned have already taken place. WE ARE DEMO: PIECES OF HISTORY LIVE ON ELSEWHERE (An article from the Vancouver Magazine, October 1994, which no doubt also applies to the North Shore) The weekend demo sale is a Vancouver icon. So is the midnight house party. Call it urban renewal, or call it brutal destruction of the city's already sparse history, but the sign of the times is splashed in black paint on cardboard and posted every Saturday morning at 33rd and Arbutus. What does it read? Demo Sale: Thataway. Not surprisingly, in a city where run-of-the mill residential land trades at about $4 million an acre, the tutting of heritage advocates is often drowned out by the bulldozers of cold market economics. Indeed, so many houses are no longer worth the ground they sit on that the term "teardown," all but unheard of outside the Lower Mainland, is now entrenched in our regional dialect. Yet it would be a mistake to think that these houses are disappearing without a trace, their every stick of Arts and Crafts history doomed to the landfill. Visit a demo sale sometime, and witness the stream of young couples and savvy contractors, who carefully and enthusiastically strip the once-stately homes of every moulding and crystal doorknob from root cellar to attic. With saw and screwdriver, hardwood floors are carefully removed, panelling is pried free, dollars change hands, pieces of history live on elsewhere. Less obviously, there is also something you might call the heritage underground. Perhaps you've heard of them, young turks and discreet couples who, having killed their car engines and coasted down gravel lanes, slip into doomed houses very early on dewy mornings and slip out shortly afterwards with leaded windows, oak baseboards and banister posts. One vacant and abandoned house on the fringe of Kerrisdale has provided a basement worth of building materials for one couple's future Saltspring Island cabin. "Since we aren't out to make a profit, we consider what we're doing recycling," says one of these nocturnal scavengers, who nevertheless acknowledges that the visits constitute trespass and theft. Serious crime, in other words. Yet, in cases where homes were obviously destined for the bin, otherwise vigilant neighbours have been known to turn a blind eye. It's a modem moral dilemma. Especially In that someday the inevitable market correction will occur. Then, when the bulldozing has stopped, will even the urban renewers look around and wonder at what they've done? If so and a few fragments of Vancouver's lost decade turn up in someone's island idyll, perhaps there's a happy ending after all. .../3