Memories
 
 

This is your page.

Here's a chance to share your Expo '86 memories with other visitors to this site.  Send pictures. Send short stories. Send long stories.  Send (almost) anything you want to scruff69@hotmail.com (pop mail link also on index page) and I'll post it here. You may be anonymous if you wish -- just let me know.

I'll start with some personal thoughts to get the ball rolling.

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When I talk to people about Expo 86 I'm not surprised that most people look back to the fair with fond memories. Even 16 years after the fact many Vancouverites (old enough to remember the fair) will discuss the timeline of their lives in terms of pre or post Expo.  But after the talk of favourite pavilions is over, the conversation usually moves from the general to the personal.

That's when the juicy stories come out.  I've found that the truly sentimental Expo memories people have carried all these years are not things listed in any brochure. They are personal snapshots of a time, a place, and the memories are often associated with a strong emotion.

One woman described (in graphic detail) a romantic kiss under the red neon kangaroos outside the Australian Pavilion (I forgot about the Kangaroos).

A friend (who is afraid of heights) recalled being coaxed onto the Purple Zone sky ride and making a rather big fuss because he was convinced that the sky ride car was going to hit the ball of Expo Centre. In his defence, the sky ride did appear to get very close.

One anonymous person wrote that during the fair he and a friend managed to jimmy open a door of one of those grey painted automobiles on the Highway 86 sculpture and made the car their personal crash pad for the better part of a week before they were found out.

A girl who worked as a hostess at the Alberta pavilion recalled that she almost got fired for getting testy and saying something snarky to yet another ignorant visitor who asked where the "country of Alberta" was located.

Another woman remembered accidentally dropping her hair brush in an Expo washroom toilet. Retrieving it was unthinkable.  She said that in the big hair era of the 80s, loosing a hair brush was the worst thing that could have ever happened to a woman in public.

The memories people have shared with me over the years bring another dynamic of Expo to life -- the human factor. As we talk of architecture and ticket sales we sometimes forget that fairs are primarily built by people for people.  Without people a fair is just a shell. Imagine how ghostly an empty amusement park would be.  It wouldn't be the same without the throngs of children or the screams from the roller coaster.  So, it's not the fair but the reaction of visiting a fair that is important. A fair itself is just a backdrop for the human experience.

So, this section is dedicated to the Expo experience.  It's dedicated to the people who shared in the experience and the designers and workers that helped shape the experience. There are millions of stories to be told.  Do you have one of them? Did you have fun?  Were you bored? Were you on the design team?   Remember that no story or memory is insignificant.

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What I remember most about Expo '86 is the people. I enjoyed talking to strangers in long lines, dancing with people in the beer gardens, gathering with friends for the fireworks and trying to hook up with a rather impressive host in the USA pavilion (I never did manage it, BTW). But most of all, there seemed to be an aura of enthusiasm etched on everyone's face. Walking through the fair, it was clear that it wasn't a place that took itself seriously and the visitors weren't expected to either.   I still see many of those faces in my mind's eye to this very day.

Scruffy.