Little three year old Sean Rush now sings proudly, ‘O-Can-nee-da!?
And that’s it, eh.
Like his old man (that would be me), he doesn’t know the rest of the anthem those hosers to the north sing. Of course his lack of verbiage on the anthem side has not stopped him from proclaiming, ‘I am Canadian.?
while he does have a little Canadian blood running through his veins (Not, it’s not Labatt Blue nor Molson nor any other Canadian ale/lager/beer) on both sides of his parental makeup, we keep on telling him he was born in America, so he is automatically an American citizen. So, what has our blue-eyed, blond-haired, All-American lad singing the praises of Canada and not the good ol? U. S. of A? (Hint: it is not their national health care system. No, it’s nothing so socialistic.)
Quite simply we — Sean, his older brother, Shamus, their mother, Jen and their father, I your hero — spent seven wonderful and relaxing days there recently. Yep, we took eleven hundred American greenbacks across the bridge from Port Huron to Sarnia, turned them into a cool fifteen hundred funny Canadian magentabacks, looneys and tooneys. (Let me state for the record right now, I’ll never get used to Canadian currency and coinage.)
While I am sure our president George W. Bush would have liked us to shoot our wad on United States soil, we’re above nationalistic policies. Rather, we see ourselves as the ever-friendly American neighbors. We wanted to help pump up the Canadian economy and I think we did a good job. When we drove back over the Blue Water Bridge, after all the conversions back to American money, we had sixty bucks and a quarter tank of petrol (not to mention the two bottles of scotch we picked up at the duty-free shop).
While I tried hard not to be the stereotypical, know-it-all, rat-smackin? American tourist, things almost turned ugly the first full day we were there. We went up to some festival in Goderich (the sister city to Bay City, Michigan) and were having a merry time. There were magicians, food vendors, dunk tanks and kid shows and in the pavilion downtown, a country and western Canadian band.
They played songs made famous by American artists like John Denver and Waylon Jennings. And, then they started in on, ‘This land is your land, this land is my land,? and we started to sing along, ‘From California to the New York Island. From the redwood forest to the gulf stream waters.?
The only problem was they were singing, ‘From Manitoba to the Prince Edward Island. From the redwood forest to the cold, cold waters, this land was made for me and you.?
They ripped off Woody Guthrie for their own nationalistic gains! To make matters worse I was humming the Canadian version the rest of the week. (And, since I thought about it, I’m humming it now, too.)
As we walked around the businesses in downtown Goderich, the kids wanted an ice cream. So, we stopped at a little shop, they picked out theirs and I paid with a ten dollar bill. The lad behind the counter paid me my change (in change) and was shocked and mortified and probably thought I was coming over the counter by the look on my face.
‘I gave you a ten,? I said.
He looked at me as if to say, ‘And, I gave you the change back, eh, you moron.?
Then I thought a little bit . . . oh, they use coins here. I smiled sheepishly and herded the boys out onto the street. Oops, my bad.
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The Canadian reputation as the beer-guzzlin? champion nearly took a hit. On Wednesday evening, around 7:30, I realized we were out of beer. I quickly jumped into the minivan and headed to the nearest town (Bayfield, Ontario) and the state-run liquor/beer store only to find it had closed at 6 p.m.
The typical American, I ranted and raved, ‘How can this be!?? I seriously doubted the wisdom of a nation in love with beer, not being able to buy after 6 p.m., until I was clued into this native philosophy. ‘American drink beer ’til it runs dry, then buys more. Canadian drink beer until one case remains, then stocks up, early, eh.?
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In truth, we had a great time and stayed at a great place, a log cabin owned by Scott Austin (who also sells fresh and smoked fish in Bayfield.) Scott also is a goose hunting guide. If you’d like to get a hold of him, his e-mail address is: gooseman@bmts.com
You can check out the cottage and others on Lake Huron by clicking here: Lake Huron Cottage Rentals
Comments to the ugly American can be e-mailed to: dontrushmedon@aol.com