California Dreamin' [part V]
Continued from part IV. To read this story from the beginning, go here.
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
10:00 a.m., Chicago time
on board United 719 to San José
I can't help but notice that the thinnest person in the dozen first class seats is only 40 pounds overweight, and I wonder whether I can live in this country. They speak the same language, they dress the same, they drive the same cars. It's the mundane matters that differ: the lack of French on packaged goods; the way they talk too loudly in public; their money that all looks the same; their incessant flag waving, both literally and figuratively.
And then there's the fucking guns. How proud it makes them; how free it makes them feel, knowing that any one of them, any ordinary citizen, on a day that he's feeling particularly pissed off, or she's PMS-ing, has the god-given right, sanctioned by the government, to walk into a Wal-Mart and buy a gun. Of course they don't have the right to shoot up the nearest McDonald's, but when they do, the rest of the country still acts like they're shocked.
We—Canadians—just don't get that. Never will.
"So what are you going to do if they offer you the job?" asked Markus on Tuesday night as he and his wife Amy and I were having a couple of pints at Wrigley's Field in St. Catharines. "Would you move to California?"
"So fast your head'll be spinning like the Tasmanian Devil in my dust," I had replied.
"Good! 'Cause Amy and I will come visit you. We've never been to San Francisco."
"Well, I'd be in San José, not San Francisco," I told them, "But the city's not that far away." And then I sketched a map of the Bay Area on the brown paper tablecloth in our booth.
"Does Jack know you're coming?" blurted Amy.
Markus looked at his watch and exclaimed, "Great job! You managed to hold it back for an hour and a half!" Then, to me, he added, "She's been dying to ask you that since I told her you were coming here."
Amy and Markus had scrutinized Jack last summer, when he came for my birthday.
"He knows," I told her, and he does, "But I don't know whether I'll see him while I'm there."
That was the truth.
"In fact, I'm not even sure I want to," I added.
And that was a lie.
To be continued in part VI, but first, a brief stop in Hell.
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
10:00 a.m., Chicago time
on board United 719 to San José
I can't help but notice that the thinnest person in the dozen first class seats is only 40 pounds overweight, and I wonder whether I can live in this country. They speak the same language, they dress the same, they drive the same cars. It's the mundane matters that differ: the lack of French on packaged goods; the way they talk too loudly in public; their money that all looks the same; their incessant flag waving, both literally and figuratively.
And then there's the fucking guns. How proud it makes them; how free it makes them feel, knowing that any one of them, any ordinary citizen, on a day that he's feeling particularly pissed off, or she's PMS-ing, has the god-given right, sanctioned by the government, to walk into a Wal-Mart and buy a gun. Of course they don't have the right to shoot up the nearest McDonald's, but when they do, the rest of the country still acts like they're shocked.
We—Canadians—just don't get that. Never will.
"So what are you going to do if they offer you the job?" asked Markus on Tuesday night as he and his wife Amy and I were having a couple of pints at Wrigley's Field in St. Catharines. "Would you move to California?"
"So fast your head'll be spinning like the Tasmanian Devil in my dust," I had replied.
"Good! 'Cause Amy and I will come visit you. We've never been to San Francisco."
"Well, I'd be in San José, not San Francisco," I told them, "But the city's not that far away." And then I sketched a map of the Bay Area on the brown paper tablecloth in our booth.
"Does Jack know you're coming?" blurted Amy.
Markus looked at his watch and exclaimed, "Great job! You managed to hold it back for an hour and a half!" Then, to me, he added, "She's been dying to ask you that since I told her you were coming here."
Amy and Markus had scrutinized Jack last summer, when he came for my birthday.
"He knows," I told her, and he does, "But I don't know whether I'll see him while I'm there."
That was the truth.
"In fact, I'm not even sure I want to," I added.
And that was a lie.
To be continued in part VI, but first, a brief stop in Hell.
Labels: Americana, family, Jack, moving to California
3 Comments:
i'll never understand canadians' bewilderment about americans' access to guns. i don't know a single person who owns one, nor an american flag.
It is, though, true that we're all enormous fatties.
You said it, Cynthia: it's the access. In Canada, ordinary citizens may not legally own guns for the purpose of "protection," and we want it that way because guns kill people. As a society we tend to agree that if someone breaks into our house to steal the silverware it's better to let them than to accidentally shoot our kids' friends who were rummaging in the silverware drawer in the process of committing a prank. Neither do we want to be mistakenly "protected" by our neighbours when we're crawling through their bushes in search of our lost cats.
In the U.S., even the most liberal among you believe that it's OK for ordinary citizens to own guns. You might not own one yourself, and you hope your neighbour doesn't, but you'll defend to the death his right to do so. You feel that strongly about protecting your silverware. It's that attitude we just don't get, and never will.
Yes, I realize all those statements are generalizations, and of course there are exceptions, however, it is from generally accepted beliefs like those that social attitudes spring, and the attitudes of American society are quite different from those of Canadian society. Very, very different, and very noticeable to us.
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