The Great White Unknown

While in Florida I had the opportunity to see a show by the Calgary Fiddlers, a group of high school students who as part of their study, tour the world with their fiddles. Their music was ‘fiddle’ versus ‘violin’ music and it took a little explaining that it was the music not the instrument that determined the classification. They play classical as well, but their show is more on the folksy side of entertainment. In any event, they were very good and the crowd loved them.

In talking to an American couple later, I thought I was reliving one of This Hour had 22 Minutes episodes of “Talking to Americans”. I had always suspected that Mercer was doing a put-on by asking American college professors loaded questions, but now I had to reassess that thought. We really do live in some unknown country for many US residents. The people we were chatting with were quite amazed that Calgary had more than one high school and that these students came from several schools but practiced together. Now I admit that Calgary is no Houston when it comes to oil towns, but by golly, it does have a pretty good rodeo!

I explained how big cow-town was, 900,000 people, and that many of the oil deals that gave Americans a lot of our oil and gas, were signed in that fair city. They had heard about the Tar Sands but thought it was near Edmonton. We tried to explain where North Bay was in relation to their hometown of Philly, but we gave up, saying it was 200 miles north of Toronto but further south than Fargo, North Dakota. This only confused them and I was not sure whether they knew where either city was.

The man then asked which side of the road we drove on. It seems he had been to Great Britain and assumed we would be driving like the Brits do – on the wrong side of the road. I told him no, we took after our French ancestry and drove on both sides of the road. His wife had been to Montreal and confirmed that this seemed to be the case. He then asked if we drove mostly Japanese and European cars and I said no, we actually drove the same mix of cars that they did, in fact, I actually drove a Chevrolet. This seemed very patriotic and American of me so I did not tell him that original manufacturer of that line of cars was Sam Durant who made cars designed by Louis Chevrolet in Oshawa, Ontario.

Disabused of our driving habits, he remarked that we must feel good now that our dollar had gained so much value. Calling on my seldom used resource of Economics 101 that I had studied in the last century, I said that it was not so much that the loonie (he knew that term) had gained value, but that the American greenback had fallen in value. He seemed shocked to hear that his money was not worth as much as he thought, but did admit that he had heard rumours that the American debt was getting a little high. I was loathe to get into American politics, suggesting that their current administration was trying to bankrupt the country, and I was certainly not going to admit that I was a social liberal. So I quickly switched to football, saying that the Super Bowl was a pretty good game.

Asked whether I was Patriots’ fan, I admitted that I did not follow American football, but was a CFL fan. He had heard that we played football up north and said he knew of one college kid who went up there. I said, yes we do get some good American players, who once they learn our game, fit in well. The game is different, he asked. Three downs, I said. This seemed impossible to him so I explained that we liked to throw the football a little more than the NFL boys. Besides, I said, our field is bigger. He asked why and the only thing I could think of was that we had a lot of room, up there, in Canada. I could see that I had one on the line now, so I said we also restricted the size of the players so there was more running room on the gridiron. None of your 375 brutes blocking for some prima-donna quarterback, I said. Of course, he did understand that we used metres, not yards, ever since Pierre Trudeau had put us on the metric system, so we actually had 11-yard downs? He shook his head in amazement.

And, I added, our football is smaller. He thought that might make it easier to catch, but I said no. I asked if he knew that we froze our hockey pucks before a game and he said he had heard that, so I said we grease our footballs before the game. We use only real pork fat on the pigskin. This causes more fumbles on the line in warm weather, I admitted, but it makes for an exciting game. The idea, I said, was that in the cold weather – we play mainly in the snow – that the players could grab the ball better when the pig fat was congealed. We did not allow players to use ‘stick-um’ on their bare hands, so you did not see many fancy catches like the guy did in the Super Bowl, catching the ball with one hand and his helmet.

To end my joke, I suggested that maybe they should drive up to Toronto and catch a game between the Argonauts and Tiger Cats. I was sure he would get a laugh from that. He thought they might just do it, now that he knew we drove on the same side of the road as Americans!