Character Sketch: Wes

Wes is new to the neighbourhood in one way; in other ways, he’s returned home. He has no idea why he moved back; he just moved for its own sake. He left the neighbourhood at the age of six years old when his family to northern Alberta to seek out better economic opportunities related to all that oil up there. His family raised him in typical Alberta fashion: on a farm, out of the way of “big city” influences such as drugs, crime and punks. Weekends were reserved either for church or traveling the snowy Alberta highways in a blue Oldsmobile station wagon en route to a hockey game in some other small town. In a personality test in one of his sister’s Cosmo magazines, he once used the words “curious, honest and sensible” do describe himself.

In his mid-twenties, he calls himself a “British Albertan”, and figures, jokingly, that if one wants to truly appreciate what the people of B.C. and Saskatchewan have accomplished with hard work and ingenuity, one has to move to Alberta. He likes Alberta beef, but still remembers what good salmon tastes like. To his disappointment, most of the salmon for sale in the neighbourhood stores is farmed and pumped full of hormones, just like the beef in Alberta. He doesn't like corporate farming and voted Green as a protest vote.

Wes is a “Non-cowboy” Albertan, meaning that he’s clean-cut, drinks Rye and prefers to ride a snowboard rather than a horse. Only slack-jawed yokels wear Wranglers, in his opinion. He has a weakness for whiskey and women and his strength is that he can hold both quite well. Generally, he thinks people are idiots and that they are getting more stupid as he gets older, but it’s really just because he’s getting older and his education has instilled in him a healthy sense of cynicism.

Although he’s changed quite a bit since he moved out of his parent’s influence, he still has plenty of adjustments to make before he can truly fit in with the rest of the residents of the neighborhood. They generally view him as a Redneck, no matter how many yoga sessions and lattes he takes in. He doesn’t realize, though, that imitating his own stereotypes of his neighbors isn’t what will make him “fit in” because the neighbourhood is a pretty diverse and accepting place. He’ll figure it out though.