LOCAL HISTORY

Moving into my tenth year on Salt Spring, i’ve not yet passed one where i haven’t been the recipient of the colloquial salty phrase “You’re not a Local until you’ve been here 10 years”. It rings in my ears like that annoying christmas music that blares out of the tower every year (p.s. with all the musicians on this island why not do a christmas cover album and play that instead?)

In most places, including the thesaurus, it’s also synonymous with bounded, inhabitant, and character. Yes, character, most of all. We refer to crazy people as “Local”. The
spanish word for crazy is “Loco”. I like to chuckle in my head and think of this when people tell me that they are Local and i am not. A Local anaesthetic is termed thus because it refers to a “freeze” instead of a blocking of the nerves. So maybe after 10 years
here we all get “frozen” in time. Do we lose touch with the outside world?

Well maybe some of us but speaking for myself only, that’s part of the reason i’m here.
I do know what’s going on and i’m not gonna lie, i don’t really fancy it. I tried once to quit Salt Spring and move to vancouver. That was the worst 7 weeks of my life. Walking down east hastings and having a “Local” tell me not to worry, that i would get “used” to it in just
6 easy months! Like one of those 6 WEEKS TO GREAT ABS! infomercials.

I battled with that in my head for the night. Get used to it? I just spent the last 10 years trying to re-sensitize myself and here someone is advising me that if i stay, that in virtually no time, i won’t care and will be able to walk by oblivious. Now that’s losing touch if i ever saw it. I went home the next day to a roast beef dinner at Simone’s.

Some have even gone so far as to comment that it’s actually 20 years, not 10, before i am given the key to that title. I walk to Pesto’s every morning and am hard pressed to not know all the faces that pass me. I was there when Vesuvius still rocked. Hosting music nights and trying to not get trampled serving in the Boxing Day Three Chord Sloth Bashes. Sang my first tunes at Moby’s Wednesday Night LIve with Charles Wilton. Now that was the day. I think i could call on the synonyms bounded and character and confidently call my self a Local even before my 10 years.

So i’m thinking we need a new term for the “native inhabitants” of Salt Spring to make it more fair. I mean, it’s not my fault that my mom didn’t get knocked up on Maxwell in the cab of a Chevy. And the moment i walked off the ferry on to the island, and asked someone where “Ganges” was (although i mis-pronounced it in “Bob Marley” fashion) i knew i was home. I can’t say i’ll live here forever, but if and when that time comes i promise to return my name tag to the information center. Maybe we could give them a title like SSS (Salt Spring Spawn), or Lifers? I suppose it won’t matter come Canada Day when officially i am crowned a Local. My induction ceremony is at 10 am. A parade will follow. See you there.

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