The Quintessential Canadian Loser

There's an hilarious story in the Globe and Mail, the paper that fun usually forgets, about the Harper government's obsession with spending your tax dollars to bring the War of 1812 to homes across this great land in the form of Hollywood style commercials.

The story reveals that little Harpos at the "Centre" became obsessed with continuity and rung their hands raw over the smallest details of the battle including the color and texture of Laura Secord's cape. (I would have colored it chocolate!)

Anyways, the story brought back memories of Grade school field trips from my beloved St. Catharines home to Niagara-on-the-Lake where we got eat a bagged lunch and ogle the Brock monument. As kids, we put up with this nonsense because our real reward was to continue on to Niagara Falls where the real fun was at Madame Tussaud's and Ripley's Believe it or Not!

I do not recollect much about the War of 1812, but I cannot forget seeing my first shrunken head at Ripley's. It was awesome.

So much for Canadian history.

Growing up on the border, I always wished that we had lost that war because I always, always, always wanted to be an American. Everything about America was cool -- JFK, iHop and cool game shows. We had Diefenbaker, Tim Horton's and the Friendly Giant.

I had border envy. Pure and simple.

I always admired the Americans for doing everything big. They were big time patriotic with their Fourth of July celebrations while we burned down a school house in the back yard on Canada Day. They pledged allegiance to the flag while we stood to attention for some distant, foreign queen.

They had Disneyland. We had the CNE.

They had the Smothers Brothers. We had Wayne and Shuster.

To this day, I want to be an American. If I had had the guts to move to the U.S. when I was out of school, I am convinced I would have found the American dream. Instead, I stayed here and failed French and thus became what I like to call The Quintessential Canadian Loser.

I have never gotten past my dream of America.

I still suffer from border envy.

They have Ryan Seacrest. We have Ben Mulroney.

They have the Super Bowl. We have the Grey Cup (see even our sports are grey!)

They have Barack Obama, and we have Stephen Harper who can take and shove his War of 1812 commercials. One day, I hope someone shrinks his head.

In the meantime, enjoy a much better video about that damned war.