Renne Jin

Summary

Kim Pollock is a retired senior who just recently retired from his career two years ago when he moved to New Westminster with his wife. Getting used to retirement, he now feels free and there is no need for him to worry about those day-to-day things associated with a job. He is now enjoying his life in Sapperton, a place that he likes very much. Most of his past life has left a deep impression on him, with some very nice changes.

 

Early childhood

Kim was born in Kelowna. Only two months after his birth, his parents moved to the coast and settled down there. Together with his family, Kim lived in Sapperton and New Westminster for about six years before he moved to their new home in Port Coquitlam. It was in Port Coquitlam that Kim grew up from a six-year-old little boy to a seventeen-year-old teenager.

When it got cold in winter, there would be swamps occurring across street from his home in Coquitlam. During three days of the year, when the temperature reached its lowest point around the whole year, Kim could skate and play hockey on the frozen swamp with his friends. One year, when he was probably ten or eleven, it snowed so much that Kim and his friends could actually use these snow to play real hockey. However, when they were almost there to finish playing, the three-day limit was over and they had almost no time to play. Once the ice started to get soft, it would be unsafe for people moving on it as there could be cracking areas.

 

A most meaningful present

When he was 12, an old family friend of Kim’s parents who had been a newspaper editor for an impressively long time gave him an ancient Smith Corona typewriter as a Christmas present. It was completely made of metal. Kim enjoyed pounding on the key to print words using this huge machine very much. Being the best toy in his life, this typewriter more or less contributed to Kim’s decision to become a reporter in his future.

 

Teenager life

Kim continued staying in Port Coquitlam until he was about seventeen years old. Then, he started to go to UBC to get his degree in Sociology and moved to Vancouver for convenience. During his first year in university, he was in the Arts One program. The whole year was like a year of liberal arts studies, which left a huge impression on his life. Suddenly, it was not just okay for them to simply think about things. Instead, they were expected to do some reflection about what was going on and how these things affected other people’s lives. As students, they learned how to form opinions about things. It was the first time that Kim felt free to do that, which was probably one of the most liberating things in his entire life as well.

Having experienced a lot of changes, many of which changed his life for the better, the advice that today’s Kim would give to his twenty-year-old self is to keep working for positive change, because changes are always happening. To know that change is constant should be the most important thing to learn and to know. He suggested that one should keep trying to manufacture changes, no matter whether the change may be for the better or for the worse. Although so much of change is for the worse, one should still keep fighting and fighting, and never give up easily half way.

 

Life changing event

After graduating from the university, Kim started his first job as a newspaper reporter in British Columbia. As a reporter, he worked for a number of small town newspapers. His duty basically included writing stories about what was happening in those cities and small towns. Then, he got a new job and moved to Ottawa when he was twenty-six years old in 1980s. This decision changed his life a lot. Before that he was living in Powell River, which is about sixty miles from Vancouver up the coast and once used to be the largest port in the world. It was very hard to get there at that time. Other than taking a plane, one could only get to Powell River by taking two ferries because there were no direct roads to there. Right after he arrived there, he went to see Henry V, a play by Shakespeare, at the National Arts Theatre and heard B.B.King during the first week. Back to his time in Powell River, there were only one concert a year; however, his new life in Ottawa was full of all these kind of enjoyments, which was fantastic in his words. He met a lot of young people who were about his same age, and finally he met my wife who was from Saskatoon. They got married in 1982. One year after their marriage, they moved from Ottawa to Saskatoon and stayed there for another two years.

 

Favourite place

If he could not afford life in Paris, Kim would choose to settle in somewhere around New Westminster because the view of Fraser River is fantastic. It is quite unforgettable to see the river runs all the way down the valley. However, Kim will still vote for Paris, an exciting and dynamic city, as his favourite place of all time. No matter what is going on, everything is so interesting there. He has visited there for four or five times. During these days in Paris, he would take a walk through those parks, stop for a cafe somewhere, or perhaps visit a bookstore along the street. In the evening, there were usually events like a concert or something else that attract you to go out. Paris is a perfect city in Kim’s mind. He also loves those markets where he could pick up foods and a bottle of wine for dinner and then go home to make dinner by himself. This was actually what he did when his daughter was studying in Paris for a whole year. His wife and him went to Paris during Christmas and spent three weeks there enjoying fun life. He especially likes the local and European food found in Paris. Either the food one can get in a restaurant or even better, from fantastic markets, both of them tastes great.