July Fourth

[klahanie]

Just stopping by to wish my good neighbours I met on here, a Very Happy B-Day.

Enjoy your Fourth of July celebrations !

~David

 

[PaulT]

Thank you, David.
I hope you enjoyed Dominio...., er, Canada Day.

Some of my favorite people & places are north of the border.

Paul

 

[N'kwala]

To all my friends and neighbours in the United States of America: Congratulations and all good wishes on the 242nd anniversary of the signing of your Declaration of Independence. May your country once again recognize and once again strive towards the genuinely noble aims on which it was founded.

 

[klahanie]

By way of thanks for my time here, allow me another comment, a sentimental story to share with you on your national day.


Some of you here will remember, years back, the dark days of "America held hostage" (during the Iran Crisis), the yellow ribbons, the counting of days, and then the bright news that some Americans had been aided by the CDN embassy. About that time I answered the telephone at our family home, it was a long distance call from a stranger who asked for my father by name.

Dad took the phone and I sat around and listened to his end of the conversation. After a bit of listening and wondering Dad started saying things like, "we didn't do anything you wouldn't have done", "Americans ALWAYS root for the underdog", "whenever anyone in the world is in trouble, Americans are ALWAYS are the first to put their hands in their pocket to help out" etc.


By now us kids were really curious about the call. When it was over Dad explained the caller was an American who had heard a radio station report that people were calling individual Canadians in a spontaneous act of thanks for what had happened in Tehran. So this fellow had done the same. He went to the library to look at a foreign phone book, picked out someone with his same name and made the call.


Now dad was pretty quick on his feet in those days and we kids asked him about what he had said. Here he taught me a lesson. He made it clear his sentiments were sincere. Dad was a great reader and student of history. He said the US was the best friend Canada could have ever had (I do believe this). And that at their root, Americans were decent and caring people.

He was also an immigrant from the country that had been "# 1" before the US. He explained that this position was an often uneasy and thankless one. (incidentally he served in his army protecting American rubber interests in the Malaysian jungles, an experience that made him sympathetic towards the GIs in Vietnam, sometimes in contrast to what others around him might have said at the time ... something about him having carried a rifle and field pack through torpid swamps.)


Anyway, that phone call and lesson has stayed with me all these years. I still marvel at the citizenry of an omnipotent country who had the humility and grace to make those calls. I can't think of another country that would. And I truly believe those national attributes my father described then, both simple and admirable are still the best to describe my neighbours.


Happy Independence Day !


and Happy Travels !