Harvey Rempel and his friend Danny Kitsul have been talking about a reunion for years — something for the people who, like Rempel and Kitsul, went to school in the North Otter and Brown Road areas of Langley back in the 1950s and ’60s.
“We all grew up on 240th and 56,” Rempel said.
“We all had to walk to school.”
One day, Rempel says, Kitsul announced it was time to stop talking about it.
Kitsul, owner of the Poppy Estate Public Golf Course on 248 Street near Fraser Highway, was willing to cater the informal lunchtime get-together.
So the friends put the word out — Kitsul by email and text messaging, Rempel by more primitive means.
“I’m still on the land line,” he said.
More than 150 people showed up, packing the parking lot and filling the golf course restaurant.
“Everybody phoned and said they were coming,” Rempel said.
Some, like Rempel, an Aldergrove resident, hadn’t moved very far.
Other came from more distant locations like Osoyoos, Vernon and Ladysmith.
“A lot of them, I haven’t seen since we left school,” the 78-year-old Rempel said.
Kitsul, who Rempel credits as the driving force behind the reunion, was unfortunately unable to attend the event due to an unexpected illness.