On Being American

From A Canadian's Perspective

When I was a kid growing up in Ottawa in the late 50s and early 60s, it was an analog time. Our telephone was on a party line with two other households and was, of course, a rotary dial phone.

We could only get two TV channels via an antenna on top of the set.

Those two TV channels were my conduits to the outside world. Virtually every TV show that wasn’t news or current affairs came from the United States.

I was in awe of America and Americans. Everything looked wonderful in the U.S. It was bigger, richer, and outwardly better than anything Canada could offer a 9 year old kid.

I dreamed of what it would be like to “go to the United States.” I remember camping with a friend and his parents at a campsite outside Ottawa. One evening, around the firepit, some other people joined us. An older man introduced himself to me and asked me where I was from.

When I asked him where he was from, he said, “Youngstown, Ohio.” I was stunned into silence. I had just met a real American. It was like I’d just met Superman.

And when I did eventually cross the border with my parents for a week in Maine when I was 13, I was beside myself when we drove onto U.S. soil.

You have to understand that my head was filled with images of America from TV shows like 77 Sunset Strip, Cannonball, Route 66, Leave It To Beaver, and many others. Americans were the “good guys” and way cool.

Of course, geopolitically, America was a superpower with no rival. That sure didn’t hurt my boyhood views.

As I grew older, a more realistic picture of the States formed in my mind, thanks in large part to widespread coverage of the war in Viet Nam which featured heavily on evening newscasts.

But I was still mightily impressed with what it must have been like to be American. As a journalism student, I cheered as the Washington Post broke the Pentagon Papers story and later as the New York Times did the same with the Watergate story.

These were two examples of right over might and further convinced me that America knew which way to go at all times.

But I remember doing the back-pack thing through Europe in the summer of 1970 and learning from fellow travellers that, if you had a Maple Leaf on your backpack, you’d be welcomed anywhere but if you had the Stars and Stripes, well, be careful.

I was vaguely aware that it had to do with the perception that Americans were loud and obnoxious when they were abroad but I didn’t pay much attention.

Years later, I was leaning over the rail of the Millennium Bridge in London, watching the Thames boat traffic when a middle aged couple approached me.

“Excuse me,” said the woman, “but do you know where St. Paul’s Cathedral is?”

“Well,” I said, “if you look over your left shoulder, you can see the dome from here.”

“Oh,” she exclaimed happily and in a somewhat louder voice, “I believe we have a fellow American here!”

“I’m Canadian,” I said flatly.

“Oh…well, thanks anyway.”

She meant no offence, to be sure. But I was struck by how Americans tend to assume everyone with a similar accent is American as well. I wondered if she even knew where Canada was.

Flash forward to Thursday night’s 4 Nations Faceoff game between the US and Finland. Locker room footage showed coach Mike Sullivan giving his players a final pep talk.

“Let’s get out there and show them American swagger,” he stated. It was a nauseating remark and smacked of everything that Canadians, Europeans and many other people from many other countries find distasteful about America.

I know there are millions of Americans who are truly ashamed of their current president but there are tens of millions of Canadians who cannot, for the life of us, understand how a convicted sex offender, twice impeached during his first term, convicted of corporate fraud, a serial cheater, misogynist, liar, and someone who openly cheats at golf as much as he cheats at life, could win a second term.

It's utterly preposterous that enough American voters could seriously believe that he gave a shit about them and their problems.

And look what he’s been doing! Stating openly that Canada should become the 51^st state, calling our Prime Minister “governor Trudeau”, making up nonsense about how the US subsidizes Canada – all total garbage. Worst of all, he is committed to a trade war with Canada, with the single aim of bringing our country to its knees economically.

When he was out of office, he was a busy guy. He managed to bend the Republican party to his will through his influence and bullying and with his social media army behind him, anonymous Brown Shirts waiting for their target missions to be handed out.

Yes, he is clever. But does he embody the spirit of being American?

What does that even mean, anymore?

Apparently, Matthew Tkachuk from Team USA was visibly angered Thursday night in Montreal when the largely Canadian crowd booed the American anthem. It wasn’t the first time; the same thing occurred at a Raptors NBA game in Toronto and at a Senators NHL game in Ottawa.

And it will continue.

Today, at 73, I look back at my childhood memories of what it must have been like to be an American, smile, and forgive myself.

It was all pure fantasy. And like many things about childhood, I have grown out of it.