If you live in a larger centre, you may think that was a bit overdue, and a lot of people in Nanaimo would agree with you. Rick was one of the main forces behind both.
But then he came back to Nanaimo, and helped turn it into the more progressive and gay-friendly place it is today.įor example, while Nanaimo’s had a Pride Week since 2002, that Pride parade today was its first, as is the rainbow-colored crosswalk you see Rick checking out, on the night it was painted below. A lot of gay people in small places respond to that sort of abuse by moving to a larger centre, where they can find more community (and safety), and Rick did live in Vancouver for a while. Rick grew up in Nanaimo, and experienced all the crap you’d expect a gay kid to experience in what was then a working-class town, like having “Rick Meyers is a fag” spray painted across the side of a bridge above a main thoroughfare. That’s him to the left, walking in today’s Pride parade. He’s been a celebrity there for a long time, first as the city’s most prominent drag performer, and more recently as an actor with various of its theater companies, and President of the Pride Society.
Rick lives just outside of Nanaimo, a city of about 80,000, across the water from the island I live on. On this dreadful day, I don’t want to write about the shootings in Orlando.
