Vancouver in Tune to Past, Future.

Byline: Isolde Raftery

Sep. 2--Everyone is abuzz about downtown rejuvenation in Vancouver, but Dolores Dearborn remembers a time before the grit settled in, when Esther Short Park was home to a skating area and a wading pool.

"Downtown had a lot of stores back then," Dearborn, 73, said. Her parents moved to the Orchards area in 1926, back when Orchards was home to turkey farms. With World War II, Vancouver's population boomed, in large part because of the Kaiser Shipyard.

But JC Penney's, Hadley's and other department stores all disappeared in later years when shopping centers popped up on what was then the outskirts of town. Esther Short, now the …