I felt surprisingly proud as I walked past the Bleecker Street Pub in lower Manhattan during the final minutes of the decisive Olympic hockey game. It looked like a nice bar and I would have gone in except it was so crowded I couldn't get through the door. I watched the last ten minutes of overtime through the window from a rainy street. Suddenly Canada scored, and the amazing party I'd been unable to join minutes before collapsed like a punctured beach ball. More than one of the disappointed faces collided with me drunkenly as they streamed out of the bar.
I went on my way, crossing lower Manhattan on foot until I came to Jacques Torres, the chocolate genius of Hudson Street. I was cold and wet, so I deliberated carefully to make the correct choice between his 'classic' or 'wicked' hot chocolates. In a celebratory mood, I went for 'wicked', a strange mix whose odd combination of allspice, cinnamon and different chilis had me seeing Juliet Binoche's lovely face until the aftertastes started swirling around my mouth and creeping down my spine. I swear my scalp began to tingle as memories of countless miserable hockey afternoons at 40 below came back to me.
My parents were stingy and made me use a pair of too-small hand-me-down skates that hurt my feet. It was long before GoreTex and I was always criminally cold in winter. My first impulse when the snow fell was to crank up the furnace and stay inside until spring. I had to be bullied and coerced into winter sports. This was my brother's job. One of the biggest coercions, I remember, was hot chocolate. "Wait 'til it's over," my brother would tell me excitedly at hockey practice, "we'll have hot chocolate."
Sometimes, we'd get into fights on the ice, and once I remember having a bloody nose that froze and then thawed out when I finally got into the warm shack where they served what they called 'chocolate'. It was watery stuff from a packet. Blood from my nose dripped into it making it red brown, salty and slightly metallic. Gross.
That was my childhood experience of Canada. Every year, there were five months of barely endurable suffering punctuated by a disappointing 'reward.' It's true that Canada can be vast and beautiful like an endless hike through Yellowstone, but I hate winter, hockey and small town self-righteousness. It's not my fault. I was born in late November, and as a newborn meeting winter head-on discouraged me from taking an interest in winter sports thereafter. I pretty much stayed cold and unhappy until I left for California in 1980.
California has two seasons; warm green and hot brown. Hard to imagine if you're Canadian, but think shorts and sandals mingled with assortments of stylish blonde and chocolate women on the beach with wine coolers as the sun goes down past Malibu every day. Think Entourage or 12 months of your dock-siders always full of sand. Think abundance and comfort, and Have A Nice Day!
I used to teach citizenship classes to new Americans at Los Angeles Valley College, and the fact that I was an illegal alien at the time seemed unimportant to everyone concerned. 'We need good teachers' the personnel officer said, fudging my paperwork. Life was so easy. Without Rodney King and the LAPD, Sandra and I might still be there. Our first son was born in Cedars-Sinai. He's 20 now. In his dreams, he wears the gold home-jersey as he hands off to Kobe to score another long-distance three-pointer. Ka-Swish!
All this is to say that I am not one of those Canadians whose nationalism is accompanied by knee jerk anti-Americanism. I don't need to hate America to feel Canadian. I've been abroad and know why we're different from other nations. Like most Canadians, I am stunned, overwhelmed and amazed by America, but I no longer feel like an uninvited wet blanket standing outside the big party looking in. I've been to the big party and yes, it is fun. But Vancouver can be fun too. It is its own place, and a good one. Winter is muted here. I don't envy you neighbors any more.
Still, some of my countrymen are not so sophisticated. Maybe you heard about this? A couple of snowbirds took down the American flag over La Quinta, California after the big hockey game. They raised the Maple Leaf -the red and white Canadian flag- over the town as if to say: "Heh, heh, heh. We won. In yer face, eh?" To me this seems like such indescribably stupid behavior that I have to assume these guys were pretty drunk. La Quinta is a retirement community famous for its golf courses, so they probably weren't in great danger of getting shot, but now, of course, they'll have to explain themselves to an American judge. For their sake, I hope he's not a hockey fan.
Meanwhile, let me explain that - like the younger brother who needs to find his own sport to excel at - Canadians still need to excel at hockey. We grip onto it ferociously in order to define ourselves because we're afraid that there's not much else. We're still insecure teenagers trying to one-up a grown-up sibling. Be patient with us. Give the two Canadian idiots in La Quinta community service sentences, and forgive us - this time - for kicking your ass. ;-)
Also, you don't have to cross an ocean, you can get home if you have to by car as well. For boomers my age (early 50's) who still have college age kids or aging parents, we want to get home in an emergency. This is why Hawaii is not an option (doesn't hurt that we live on the water at home either).
if there is any resentment, we don't see it. The income of this area is based on tourism, and it is down. A fellow we know with a local furniture/decorating business said if not for Canadian clients, he would have gone under this past year. Same of real estate agents, retail, restaurants etc. Many businesses up and down El Paseo (the Rodeo Drive of Palm Desert) went belly up from last year. This happens a lot even in a good economy down here, as seasonal residents come and go. But it is far more noticeable this season and last year. I am however predicting a slow recovery over the next few years. Home prices are reduced across America, excepting maybe the San Francisco/ Marin are where there are always a shortage of available homes, so I wouldn't say Americans are resentful... yet. Will they be eventually? Probably, as we already have that resentment at home in Vancouver about house prices being driven up by foreign buyers. Time will tell.
It's very good to know that Canadian snowbirds are still quite welcome in southern tourist spots especially California. The strength of our dollar probably means there will be a lot more southbound tourists next year, many of these -I'm sure- will consider buying a second/winter home in the sunny southwest. The desert is beautiful, and if you're from the frozen (or wet) north like us it can seem especially exotic although I got enough of it when I lived in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
In California, the real pull for me now is a city like San Francisco which has become warmer in recent years but which is still so beautiful and where so much is happening. The cheapest home I can find inside the city is $1million, so we have to wait until I write a bestseller...
Please, promise you'll by a copy from me, Bubblecut...
Above is the link to the article on the Desert Sun web page stating that the perpetrators were remorseful. I think I saw another reference somewhere about an apology as well.
I think that the major reason Canadians are buying up homes is really twofold. Yes, deflated home prices are part of it but we are in the middle of a baby boomer cusp that started in about 2000 down here, when we bought our original home and people born at the beginning of the boom, such as my husband (1942) were beginning to retire. The ball virtually kept going until the housing crisis down here when everyone put the brakes on. Even today, I could still see the odd house bordering the golf course that is obviously bank owned and in need of TLC. Americans have mostly put the brakes on, but after a somewhat brief slowdown north of the border, there seems to be renewed interest in owning a second home. The main draw of the desert area is a direct flight daily in season from Vancouver (2 hr. 40) nonstop and 2 flights daily from Calgary, apparently to continue through the year. The weather is extremely reliable here, dry about 360 days a year.
Thanks for the post. It is a great life to enjoy the best that both countries offer and like yourself I'm always careful while visiting not to offend my American hosts....
I saw the Desert Sun articles before I wrote -didn't see one about a Canadian fellow apologizing. (Could you please link us to that?). I knew the issue was much more serious in California than it seemed in Canada.
I'm interested by the fact that Canadians are buying up homes in the deflated real estate market while the loonie is high. (It's something I'd been thinking of although I'm more partial to the coast -Sta Cruz, San Francisco- than the desert.)
I wonder if there's any resentment against foreigners taking advantage of America by buying homes at reduced prices in these troubled times? How does it seem to you? I also wonder if there's more than a trickle of outmigration from California these days now that the water, agriculture, and infrastructure
are all in decline.
Your ideas are most welcome.
Giles (back in Vancouver now).
What is disturbing though, is the comments that have accompanied the articles in the local papers, both the Province at home and the Desert Sun down here. The Canadian contingent here are buying homes in record numbers, helping prop up a sagging local economy dependent on the winter visits from snowbirds, both American and Canadian, and spending money. We know it doesn't entitle us to behave anyway we want nor would we, but I think to blame the thousands of Canadians who in many cases have been here for decades
I hope the churlish posters on both sides of the border let this go, and let the local authorities do their job.