How an impromptu outing for a group of bored Vancouver teenagers sparked a 50-year tradition

The Last Word: Annual Bored Meeting Mike McCardell has The Last Word on how a group of bored teenagers got together, starting a tradition that has lasted 50 years.

They sat around after school. They were bored. They were 17. It was 1973.

“What do you want to do tonight?” one asked.

“Don’t know. There’s nothing to do. I’m bored.”

One of them said that. Then another, “Everything is boring. School is boring. I’m bored of being bored.”

Then they kicked a tree. “That’s how bored we are.”

Then another said, because they were bored but they were bright, “Why don’t we have a Bored Meeting? That’s what older people are always doing.”

“We could have a Chairman of the Bored. And we could get dressed up in ties and jackets and look like we’re important.”

They looked so spiffy when they walked into a Vancouver restaurant that they ordered wine and it came. And after dinner they had cigars and brandy.

“This is the greatest Bored Meeting ever!”

They asked for the menu as a souvenir. Then they came up with a secret handshake for the members of the Bored.

And the next year they went to another restaurant and had another Bored Meeting with a new Chairman of the Bored. And they collected the menu.

Then they went back to the same tree and kicked it again. And they took a couple of leaves from it and put them in a book.

And they did it again the next year, and the year after, and in time they went through universities and careers and marriages and divorce and children and grandchildren and retirement.

And each year they had a Bored Meeting with a new Chairman of the Bored and they brought the tree’s leaves with them.

And they went back and kicked the old tree. They've taken a photo every year and saved the menu and receipt for the restaurant  where the meeting was held in a scrapbook.

This year marks their 50th Bored Meeting, which is being held on a cruise ship going to Alaska. They are all 67 and had matching T-Shirts made for the trip. But even though they'll be far from Vancouver, a key component of the ritual will remain unchanged.

“We’ll find a new tree to kick up there,” one of them said.