If Chicago and Florida are my first homes and Israel is my second home, then Canada is definitely Number Three. Much of my family lives there and I myself lived Up North for three of my earliest and most impressionable years.Canada has been in the news for the past few days because of two terrible terrorist attacks that claimed the lives of two Canadian soldiers. I can't help but feel a personal connection to this wonderful country and its fantastic Prime Minister (I wish he were our President).
When I returned to the United States from my three years in Canada I was in third grade. I sang "O Canada" instead of the Star Spangled Banner and I spelled lots of words with "e"s instead of "a"s and I also stuck in a lot of "u"s and other superfluous letters (like grey, behaviour, catalogue, colour, labelled etc.) Truth be told, I still find myself spelling a few of them the "wrong" way. I couldn't recite the Pledge of Allegiance and I only knew about the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving because my All American mother insisted on celebrating them.
I still love returning to Canada for a simcha and seeing some of my old haunts, our old house (brand new and barren when we lived there but now old, stately and well shaded), the graves of my ancestors and my old elementary school. Canada has become tremendously more diversified but it is still clean, beautiful and COLD, hahaha.
O Canada. You still have a piece of my heart...
:-)
Hi Evelyn, I stumbled on your blog googling Gypsy Dance fabric and have been reading a few other posts. I'm a Canadian living in England and have a few Gypsy Dance pieces as well - I love this pattern too and I think they still look gorgeous after all these years.
ReplyDeleteWhere in Canada did you live? Most places in Canada (Quebec being the exception) love celebrating Thanksgiving as well - not sure why it isn't a big deal in Quebec as well as it's a big farming province and has a harvest like elsewhere. Canadian Thanksgiving is celebrated in October and I've brought that tradition to England with me (although I usually stuff a chicken insteadof a turkey as it's just the two of us!)
I don't think most Canadians see the recent incident in Ottawa as a terrorist attack, but rather as a nutter with a gun. He was a troubled man and Canadians don't want it labelled as a terrorist attack - that label seems to give both the Canadian and USA governments the impression that they can further jam their foot in the door and go overboard violating citizen privacy. That's scarier than the occasional nutcase going on a shooting spree and has far wider reaching consequences.
Kind regards to you and I shall continue to read your blog - I like your style :)
Thank you so much for the kind words. I lived in Toronto (60 years ago!)
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