I Like Canadians

Yesterday some big cheeses from our parent company in Canada came down here and got rid of a couple of this companys big cheeses. Then they held meetings with the whole company to explain the changes and let us know the direction they wanted to go, yada, yada, yada... the usual corporate stuff.

While the one cheese was going on with his speech, I started thinking that it would be really cool if he reached into his pocket and pulled out a donut, bit it and said "It's a jelly." I couldn't get that image out of my head.

One of the reasons for this image is that I thought stuff like that was just some goofy stereotype from the Bob & Doug McKenzie days. But, happily, I found out this isn't always the case. My friend G and I used to go to the "Jamboree In The Hills" country music festival regularly. We never went for the music. Neither of us cared for Country music much. We went for 2 reasons, the people and the party.

The whole place was set up as one huge party. The stage was built at the bottom of a hill formed in a semi-circle around it. Natural bleachers. Almost everyone who came would bring flags from their home, usually state flags and city flags. Some foreign country flags. Everyone was super friendly and always invited you into their group. I would strap a guitar to my back and G would grab his base, stuff his blues harp in his pocket and we'd walk around visiting as many places as we could. There was always a group jamming and invariably they would invite us to sit in. It was never a problem learning the songs. Most country stuff can be learned in about a minute.

When we first encountered a Canadian group, they actually saw us walking by and came down the hill to 'pass on a friendly shot'. Two guys and a woman from a large group. One had a 1/2 gallon of Vodka, one had a 1/2 gallon of gin. Well, being the 'fair and friendly guys' that we were, (that's what they called us) we joined their group.

It was amazing to us how they just embraced us as their own for the entire festival after that. Several of them would come to our trailer in the mornings with beer and donuts to share for breakfast. (No, I'm not making that up.) We would do our best Bob & Doug imitations for them and they would laugh hysterically at us. Silly Americans! I found it interesting that they preferred American beer to their own though. There I was with a cooler full of Molson Golden and they went out of their way for Strohs. I couldn't stand that stuff. They didn't care for Molson. Huh.

Anyway, this is getting longer than I had planned. Suffice it to say that every year after that we went looking for Canadian flags and met many friends that way. Every time the Canadian people were super friendly and a blast to hang with.We sure appreciated them.

All this went through my mind as the big cheese was talking. At the end I was wishing he would say (about the ones they let go), "We came here to tell them 'take off', and we meant it." That would have been too cool!