On Victoria Day, the long weekend was reliably the time for opening the cottage. Our modest beach was loaded with firecrackers and the good fortune of being a British citizen was duly and repeatably celebrated. We looked forward to all of this with glee and the relief that comes from the end of the long snow-bound winter and the joys of the lakeside in summer. The Monarch is more than a portrait as you so well explain. Symbols change as national identity evolves. But should anyone really rejoice in hoodlums tearing down Egerton Ryerson's statue on the grounds of what was for most of my life a technical college? Particularly, when the dull name of Metropolitan is selected with no appreciation of Big Daddy Fred Gardiner who ran our Metro government with protestant conviction and built the modern Toronto? I fear we average mortals will have no way to know our own history and will thus become strangers in the present let alone the past. Long live Victoria Day. I shall celebrate with a very fine made in Canada Gina and Tonic myself. Vivat Regina!
Dan, to really understand Canada, better than all that history I admit I didn't know and thank you for skimming for me - you should read "The Efficient Society" by Montreal philosophy professor, Joe Heath.
Heath calls his own country totally awesome (which is not very Canadian of him), "as close to Utopia as it gets", because it values efficiency over ideology. We have all the same free-market ideologies as Americans, the same worship of entrepreneurs and the rich (we have Royals), but we cheerfully toss it aside when it doesn't work. So we have all that gun control and free medical care that the US lacks.
I bring up "efficiency", because you missed the real reason that nobody moved back to April 21st, much as we loved Liz, nobody will move that date one damn day: it's the Canadian start of summer. It never had anything to do with the 5-foot-tall symbol who never visited here.
We loved your "Thanksgiving" idea, too, and adopted it, but just callously moved it a month earlier, because late November is already winter up here. Victoria Day is our Official Start of Summer, and by god we will stand, in shorts, and sneakers, in two inches of snow to run the barbeque, because it is Victoria Day. Period.
Lovely to read this again, a welcome respite from power outage and storm damage news of the 2022 Victoria Day weekend. Best read with a GnT in hand. May we always hold fast to Victoria Day!
On Victoria Day, the long weekend was reliably the time for opening the cottage. Our modest beach was loaded with firecrackers and the good fortune of being a British citizen was duly and repeatably celebrated. We looked forward to all of this with glee and the relief that comes from the end of the long snow-bound winter and the joys of the lakeside in summer. The Monarch is more than a portrait as you so well explain. Symbols change as national identity evolves. But should anyone really rejoice in hoodlums tearing down Egerton Ryerson's statue on the grounds of what was for most of my life a technical college? Particularly, when the dull name of Metropolitan is selected with no appreciation of Big Daddy Fred Gardiner who ran our Metro government with protestant conviction and built the modern Toronto? I fear we average mortals will have no way to know our own history and will thus become strangers in the present let alone the past. Long live Victoria Day. I shall celebrate with a very fine made in Canada Gina and Tonic myself. Vivat Regina!
Dan, to really understand Canada, better than all that history I admit I didn't know and thank you for skimming for me - you should read "The Efficient Society" by Montreal philosophy professor, Joe Heath.
Heath calls his own country totally awesome (which is not very Canadian of him), "as close to Utopia as it gets", because it values efficiency over ideology. We have all the same free-market ideologies as Americans, the same worship of entrepreneurs and the rich (we have Royals), but we cheerfully toss it aside when it doesn't work. So we have all that gun control and free medical care that the US lacks.
I bring up "efficiency", because you missed the real reason that nobody moved back to April 21st, much as we loved Liz, nobody will move that date one damn day: it's the Canadian start of summer. It never had anything to do with the 5-foot-tall symbol who never visited here.
We loved your "Thanksgiving" idea, too, and adopted it, but just callously moved it a month earlier, because late November is already winter up here. Victoria Day is our Official Start of Summer, and by god we will stand, in shorts, and sneakers, in two inches of snow to run the barbeque, because it is Victoria Day. Period.
Pix or it's not true
:)
Lovely to read this again, a welcome respite from power outage and storm damage news of the 2022 Victoria Day weekend. Best read with a GnT in hand. May we always hold fast to Victoria Day!