God Bless Canmerica
I just had my first election (no, that’s not an auto-correct).
My first election in which I could vote as an American, that is. I received U.S. citizenship almost three years ago, so voting in this fall’s Presidential election was a first for me. And the lady handing out ballots at the polling station let everyone know it.
When I asked her a couple of procedural questions, confessing to be a rookie because I’d grown up in Canada and only recently became American, she stood up with a big grin, raised her arms, and shouted to the crowd in the gymnasium, “ATTENTION, EVERYONE!! WE HAVE A NEW CITIZEN AND FIRST-TIME VOTER!!!”
Crickets. Actually, it was quieter than crickets. It was as quiet as a roomful of crickets that had literally been bored to death by having the Electoral College explained to them.
I think the very disappointed ballot lady thought there was going to be a collective cheer, a loud congratulatory roar, perhaps even a friendly mob coalescing to carry me around on its shoulders as other ecstatic volunteers lost their minds and ripped up freshly filled-in ballots to fling as confetti.
Patriotic fervor only goes so far at 8:30am.
I sat down at a booth to vote, and recalled my friends back in Canada reacting twenty years ago to my decision to move to the U.S. for a job.
“Why would you want to live in the States?” they asked incredulously. “Everyone has a gun down there, health care costs are astronomical, and, worst of all,” —- tears filled their eyes— “they spell ‘color’ without a ‘u’!”
“Yes,” I said, “but I’ll hear a lot less French-Canadian rap music on the radio.” That won me the argument immediately.
I have great affection for my maple-leafed motherland, but I’ve grown to love my star-spangled surrogate too. As a dual citizen, here are a few things I enjoy about life in the U.S.:
1) Saturday mail delivery. It doesn’t exist in Canada, where, by Friday, postal workers are apparently exhausted from losing letters and mangling packages; but not here in America. And I don’t mean to brag, but when you get as much fan mail as I do— two or three letters a year, often from my mother— it’s nice to know that there’s one extra day a week that it might show up.
2) Religion in the public square. Faith is woven into the social fabric of American life in a way that horrifies much more secular Canada. People in the U.S. sing “God Bless America” and they mean it. I warm to this popular sensibility. It’s been impossible so far for anyone to become the American President without at least lip-service acknowledgement of maintaining a personal Christian faith. In Canada, however, a candidate for public office who asks the question, “What would Jesus do?” will next ask, “Would you like fries with that?”
3) That American Thanksgiving dish known as sweet potato marshmallow casserole. OMG. I’d never seen it in Canada. I can no longer give thanks for my Canadian Thanksgivings. I was deprived of this manna from heaven. I am awestruck and grateful for the genius who thought to combine sweet potatoes, brown sugar, and marshmallows and call it a casserole. That’s like tossing lettuce in a bowl with whipped cream and Hershey bars and calling it a salad. I just might knock my mother to the ground if she stood in the way of me and that casserole. It’s that good. And I’m that shallow.
Look, I don’t rule out settling north of the border again someday, but let’s face it, it’s the longest undefended border in the world, so why not just eliminate it altogether? America, on those rare occasions it’s aware of the large foreign land mass directly above it, already treats it like it’s the 51st state; and a bonus for Americans if the countries unite is that they could adopt Canada’s much simpler legal system [the Canadian legal system has only two laws: 1) no forcing people with a lisp to say “Saskatoon, Saskatchewan”; and 2) no hunting Nickelback without a permit].
To rename a newly amalgamated continent, my second suggestion would be Canmerica (I am realistic enough to suppose that my first proposal, Cuylerland, wouldn’t get much traction).
After two decades of living in the U.S.A., I truly believe Americans and Canadians are more alike than different. So come on, everyone, let’s gather under the flag of Canmerica and super-size into one country. And yes, I’d like fries with that. And sweet potato marshmallow casserole.