This City has the best neighbors in the U.S. 

You can see our great neighbors from North Beach. 

Oh. Canada.

There’s no excuse for Americans  knowing as little about our (alleged)  51st state as they do. We are not, after all, the center of the known universe. 

We’re lucky to have a Canadian connection. 

When you read  this, we will have just arrived back from Victoria, B.C., where our oldest grandchild, a Canadian, graduated from college this week. (The University of Victoria). Victoria is British Columbia’s capital, and it has the lovely, stately capitol building to prove it. 

Our son was born in Montreal, so he’s lucky, having birthright (sound familiar?) Canadian citizenship. And our granddaughter now babysits for B.C.’s premier, David Ebey. 

One of my biggest mistakes was not getting dual citizenship when we lived in La Belle Province (Québec) for several years. If we had done so, we  might well be living up there now, thanks  to  Mango Mussolini. 

Some interesting notes about Canada: 

— Few Canadians say “eh” any more, and haven’t for years. Instead, upspeak has replaced that word as approbation. 

— Canadians also don’t say “bathroom.”  They say “washroom.” A good way to spot them. 

— Milk in Canada is usually sold in clear plastic bags. Not sure why, and it took some getting used to.  Also: 

— Canada is currently recruiting and attracting American doctors, which it needs. Many doctors are, of course, among us Yanks who also want to leave the embattled U.S. right now. 

 — Canada trivia:  Windsor, Ontario, is the only place in Canada where you actually look NORTH to see the U.S. (check a map).

 — Canada stopped minting pennies a decade ago.

If you want to visit an uncrowded Trader Joe’s, go to the one up in Bellingham. Many Canadians have stopped coming to the U.S., for obvious political reasons. Plus, U.S. border guards have started searching cars even as they leave the U.S. Our Canadian friends are now wary of the border, for good reasons. And they are also quite wary of having their phones searched for anti-Trump email. For this reason, a long-time Canadian friend of ours has been warning us not to send him any anti-Trump email.. Some way to treat a good neighbor. 

 — On a lighter note, when you set sail on the durable MV Coho from Port Angeles to Victoria, you hear … Bing Crosby. He recorded a song extolling the Black Ball ferry line  with the Andrews Sisters (!)  way back in 1951.

 — But Canada has other things on its collective mind these days besides the current Washington D.C. dumpster fire:  Mainly … Hockey! 

The Stanley Cup finals are going on now. A Canadian team, Edmonton, is in the finals. 

When I was a sportswriter for the Montreal Gazette in 1972, I got assigned to cover the Stanley Cup parade. I rode in a car with two members of the victorious Montreal Canadians, brothers Frank and Pete Mahovlich. There were 150,000 fans lining the Ste. Catherine Street parade route, No bottles or punches were thrown at us. I knew I wasn’t in the U.S. any more.

Riding in that parade was a Canadian  dream. I’ve never forgotten it. 

Our local Rotary Clubs’ district is the only one that  straddles an international border. District 5020 is shared with B.C. 

One day at Port Townsend Morning Rotary, a Canadian Rotary official showed up. I was asked to sing “O Canada.” I was several bars into their national anthem when it hit me — I was singing it in French. Oops. Force of habit from living years in the francophone province of Quebec. I didn’t even know the lyrics in English. I do now. Canada has a far-easier-to-sing anthem than we do. Maybe it was my inner Canadian singing that day. 

Before leaving snowy Montreal, Canadian publisher Tundra Books, asked me to write a humor book about Canada and Canadians, which I did. It sold pretty well. 

But it would have been much easier to write a joke book about  our current government here. That one practically writes itself. 

(PT humorist and Canadian fan Bill Mann is now known as newsmann9@gmail.com.)