Valerie Salkeld remembers her then-boyfriend picking her up after work one cold day in January 1990 and heading over to Olympic Plaza in downtown Calgary to watch people skating.
“All of a sudden he just handed me an envelope with my name on it,” she says.
“Look down” was written on the paper inside.
And there was her boyfriend, Laird, on one knee with a ring box beside a brick embedded into the ground with a misprinted engraving: “Will you mary me Val.” The proposal took two years of planning.
For their 25th anniversary, Laird Salkeld had a new brick made — this time with “marry” spelled correctly.
Valerie Salkeld says she was disappointed when she heard this summer that the original brick was one of some 33,000 slated for destruction as the aging plaza and adjacent performing arts complex undergo a $660-million overhaul.
As part of a fundraiser ahead of the 1988 Olympics, people could purchase and …