Canadians At McDonalds...

I am sitting at McDonald’s in Two Harbors drinking my first coffee of the day. I am not here for the coffee per say, although it is not that bad (and I need the caffine), I am here for the free Wi-Fi so I can post something on my blog, respond to some e-mail and read the Globe and Mail online.

At the table adjacent to mine four women sat down and as I could overhear them talking I was pleasantly surprised to hear a familiar accent or intonation to their words. It was Canadian that they were speaking, the "mum", the "ouut", and the references to familiar geography, Thunder Bay, Ottawa and making comments to the temperature in Celsius.

I commented to them that I was enjoying hearing them speak “Canadian” and in typically Canadian fashion one responded, it is “English” that they were speaking. I don’t think an American would ever respond like that – it is “American” that they speak. I told them I was from Sudbury and I also share a common nationality with them and it is amazing that even though I never saw any of them before, there is some sort of bond or commonality that is experienced simply by virtue of where we were all born. In a country very different from the one all five of us found ourselves in this morning in March.

Again, some of the words of John Irving came to my mind from his novel a prayer for Owen Meany, “Every American should be forced to live outside the United States for a year or two. Americans should be forced to see how ridiculous they appear to the rest of the world! They should listen to someone else’s version of themselves – to anyone else’s version! Every country knows more about America than American’s know about themselves! And Americans know nothing about any other country!”

This morning I miss Canada…