Ditch Doc » Canadiana

Usquequo, Domine?

bt — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 18:49:21 +0000

Really? I mean REALLY? It’s nearly May!

Family Day

bt — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 21:20:58 +0000

You know the family is in rough shape when having one day of the year named after it increases its importance. The really scary thing is that in the lead-up to this fourth EVER family day in Ontario, people were already asking one another: “So. Gonna do anything with your family for Family Day?” Just the same, I’ll accept the day off.

The Wearable

bt — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 17:25:16 +0000

I’ve now field tested a pair of Northern Watters oiled wool mitts on a protracted tire change in the freezing wind. I had to chip the flat out of the ice that had built up in my driveway while I was out of town, and I discovered after starting that my jack was missing half the handle, requiring me to use the wrench instead, one laborious half-rotation after another. The verdict: They may look like they should be hanging by an idiot string from your kid’s coat sleeves, but these are working men’s mitts. After forty-five minutes of handling frozen iron, my hands still thought they were at home in bed. Next I’m getting one of their sweaters. Check out their site from the sidebar.

Update: Took the same mitts on a walk in the wind today, and they are NOT WINDPROOF! The car must have given more of a lee than I’d thought. Still, pretty warm overall, and downright toasty in my pockets and between blasts. Maybe next winter I’ll check out their sheepskin mitts.

Breakfast in Thunder Bay

bt — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 13:04:15 +0000

I’d forgotten what a comfort the Husky gas station and diner is. It’s the only chain built on that bastion of small hospitality (and therefore of Christendom), the leathery, blunt old waitress with a heart of gold. Countless weary truckers would turn nowhere else to fulfil the sacred rite of breakfast. You may suspect as much when she asks the second patron in a row: “Just the usual, Bob?” But you know it with perfect certainty when she greets you, an obvious out-of-towner, with a cup of coffee and a well worn “Do you need a menu this morning, sir?”

Fairy Tales Do Come True

bt — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 03:37:52 +0000

And so it ended. With one goal, Sid the Kid closed the Vancouver Olympics and completed Canada’s record-setting gold medal run, putting the finishing touch on the Games that will define my generation. For my whole life, I’ve heard politicians, TV personalities and beer commercials proclaiming our prominent place on the world stage with that awkward blend of arrogance and nervous self-doubt that haunts all our searching for the Canadian Identity. But this morning, I woke up in a country astonished to discover that it’s really true. Newspaper headlines and radio show hosts all had the same tone of humble pride: “Well imagine that! We did it!” The roaring crowds in roads and stadiums, the tragic heroism of Joannie Rochette, Clara Hughes’ beaming exit from a glorious career, the glut of gold medals, and of course that golden moment that will live in our hearts until they stop, gave an example of excellence fit for the whole world, and finally showed us what it is to be Canadian: We live in this great cold country with three coasts, we are good at what we do, we love one another deeply, and that is enough. I’ll end with a phrase I heard shouted more times than I could count in streets and bars across London last night:
God keep our land, glorious and free.

National Unity…

bt — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 04:36:22 +0000

…is walking through the snow two hundred feet from an eight story apartment building with all its windows closed against the cold, and hearing the walls vibrate with the cheer for an unimportant goal. Go Canada.

Alexander who?

bt — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 04:28:36 +0000

7 to 3.
Stick that in your big red machine and grind it!
LLLLUUUUUUUUUUU!

Your Tax Dollars at Worship

bt — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 14:09:21 +0000

Any self-respecting Messiah needs at least the rudiments of liturgy and public devotion if he’s to be taken seriously. Never outdone in matters of piety, the boys at the CBC are preparing a modest musical hecatomb to the Hopeful One, to contain the 49 ‘musical offerings’ best expressing life north of 49. Obama really does turn the world on its head. Canadians still define the nation with reference South, (it’ll take the Apocalypse to change that), but in two short months we’ve gone from haughty moral superior to breathless supplicant. Surely He Who Changes will be most pleased.

Remembrance Day

bt — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:05:30 +0000

It seems as though every Remembrance Day someone trots out the little trope that we remember our fathers’ sacrifices so that we won’t have to repeat them. I’m surprised it took me so long to realize the obvious error of this sentiment. We remember their sacrifices first of all to pray for their eternal rest, and second to honour those who remain. Of course these acts should affect our own disposition as well, the goal being to give us courage to follow in their footsteps. The only certain thing about freedom is that it will always require the blood of the free. Remembrance Day reminds us to offer it. When we finally decide “never again,” and act on it, we will have decided to live as slaves.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them, lest we forget.

Oh Canada

bt — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 06:18:42 +0000

To moderate the bitterness of the last post, allow me to do a bit of flag waving:

and state that Canada is my home and native land, which I love with all my heart. That’s one thing that makes it so frustrating to see it making such big mistakes sometimes.