Found This in my inbox this morning, no idea who wrote it.
Hey Yank, your mother wears army boots!
That used to be quite an insult, for reasons I’m not quite sure of. In fact, “Yank†itself used to be an insult, as in “Yankee go home.†In some circles, “Canuck†remains an insult. Burning another country’s flag is supposed to be an insult. Walking on a flag is supposed to be an insult (when it happened in Brockville, Ontario, years ago). Burning another country’s leader in effigy is supposed to be an insult, or is it a threat – I’m never sure which.
Now, it’s booing another country’s national anthem, as happened in Vancouver when the Detroit Red Wings paid a visit, or on Long Island when the noisy and exuberant fans of the New York Islanders booed the Canadian anthem (then sent the Leafs home with the series tied at two games apiece, Mats Sundin out for the duration, and the Leafs effectively toast).
Years ago, at a speed-skating oval in Winnipeg, my friends and I watched an international competition between Canadian and American speed skaters. The Americans were from Grand Forks, North Dakota, but at that tender age I still considered it an intense international competition between our neighbourhood of Crescentwood and the big, bad Americans from south of the border.
My friend Ray Shaw, a tall kid with a Fonzie-type haircut and a Fonzie-type demeanour, dared to shout an insult at a Grand Forks skater who finished behind one of our Winnipeg skaters. Can’t remember exactly what he said, but the word “Yankee†was contained in an epithet that carried over the snow and ice and into the ears.
The Grand Forks skater left the ice, clomped over a big snowbank, approached my friend Ray Shaw, grabbed him by the front of his jacket and smacked him several times so hard my friend fell spinning into an icy puddle beside the oval. Jeez (I thought to myself) are the Americans ever sensitive.
C’mon, Canada, settle down, grow up. If we’re going to be winners, we better start acting like it.
Yes, after the events of Salt Lake City last winter, when the Canadians won Olympic gold in both men’s and women’s hockey, we are – dare I say? – the New York Yankees of hockey. We cleaned up. We humbled them. So now when four Canadian National Hockey teams are in the National Hockey League playoffs, people south of the border are getting their licks in.
That’s what happens to champions.
And how is it we cringe not when a television beer commercial features a Canadian at a bar being insulted by two Americans, both depicted as rather, well, fey fellows. “Where’s your beaver?†one of the Americans taunts the Canadian, whereupon the Canadian reaches back, picks up a sharp-toothed beaver and tells it to attack. The beaver responds by leaping onto one of the Americans, presumably grasping him in a death-grip with its tree-cutting chompers. Fade out to: “I AM CANADIAN.â€
No insult intended, eh? Nope, simply homicide by beaver.
I remember driving around New Zealand a few years ago and stopping at a rest area by the highway. Three of us gathered to discuss whatever it was we were discussing. The subject of North America arose and the Kiwi fellow said something to the effect that Canadians and Americans are the same. The words he used were, “You both share the same dirt.â€
The third driver was American, and he instantly noticed a look of anger on my face. I reacted badly to two things: the fact the Kiwi thought Canadians and Americans were the same, and his reference to us sharing “dirt.†To my delight, the American came to my defence and defused the situation by explaining to the Kiwi that Canadians don’t like to be identified as Americans, probably the same way New Zealanders don’t like to be identified as Australians.
We ended up stopping for beers at the first bar we approached down the highway. That’s when the Kiwi explained his use of the word “dirt†really meant only “ground,†as in “space†or “territory.†At the end we exchanged names and addresses and promised to send one another postcards.
This booing of anthems goes on all the time. And what’s the big deal? As one of the stories from Long Island said, former Maple Leaf player Darryl Sittler – who happened to be at the game – explained to the reporter: “Hey, fans are fans. I think that they boo the team, not so much the flag or the country.â€
Remember the baseball World Series game in 1992 when an honour guard marched onto the field in Atlanta carrying the Canadian flag upside down? Well! Canadians reacted as if it was a deliberate ploy to unnerve us, insult us. But, no, we – well, the best Americans we could field – went on to win that World Series, as we did the year after.
And wearing army boots, as we all know, has become the height of fashion in the new millennium, right up there with pierced noses.
Edited, Tue May 16 02:14:09 2006 by DVEight
