Last night, Herself and I went to dine at Fet’s. Nothing unusual in that. In fact, regular readers will know that Fet’s is our favourite hangout on the Drive. However, last night we were not there just for the burgers.
While we are at Fet’s, though, we might as well discourse on the food first. Fet’s has made a real effort recently to have a good changeable fresh sheet. Last night it included “Moroccan Meat Pie” which I was intrigued enough to try. It turned out to be a shepherds pie with a spice I couldn’t recognize, a lot of orange flavour, and cheese in the potato topping. None the worse for all of that, either. It was served piping hot and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
My bride had the Caribbean burger, which she declaimed was as good as ever. And that is saying something because in this writer’s humble opinion, the Fets’ Caribbean burger is the finest burger available — definitely on the Drive and probably in the City. I’m not usually a lover of pineapple, cooked or otherwise; but in this dish it works perfectly. As always, Eric takes care of his meat, and the burgers are well-formed, generous, and perfectly cooked.
Another fine dining experience. But on to the real reason we were there.
Some of you may have heard of the Reverend Fred Phelps and his tribe of followers from Kansas. The leadership and members of his Westboro Baptist Church have become famous for showing up at US military funerals with signs saying “God Bless the Roadside Bombs” and “God Hates America”. They do this in the belief that America’s soldiers are being killed by God because America allows gays to live and thrive. Typical extremism, religious fanaticism of the American kind.
Next door to Fet’s is the Havana restaurant/art gallery/theatre space. The play opening there last night was about the young gay man brutally murdered in Wyoming a few years back. Rumour had it that Phelps and his maniacs were motoring all the way from Kansas to Commercial Drive to protest against the play.
His mob was supposed to arrive at 7. We got to Fet’s at 6 and, on the way, met with several people coming to the Drive to protest against Phelps. By the time we finished dinner and went back on the street, there were several hundred anti-Phelps folks there, with banners and rainbow flags and a lot of noisy joy considering the continuous heavy rain. It was wonderful to see our neighbourhood pour out onto the cold and wet streets in support of the consenting diversity that flavours the Drive and, indeed, the entire Province.
My night-time camera skills are minimal and I didn’t have a tripod to steady the long exposures; so this is an impressionistic view of the crowd outside the Havana last night:
In the end, Phelps and his people never showed up. Perhaps he was stopped at the border, perhaps he was scared off by our numbers. Who knows? We stayed around for quite a while. This was community in action.
Posted by jakking 
Jak's View of Vancouver v.3 