The raucous cheering that followed the Olympic announcement - in many parts of the city anyway - had me thinking that our Olympic celebration was looking at lot more like the holidays of our American neighbors.
Which got me thinking about how the two countries celebrate their "independence."
This time three years ago I experienced both national holidays: our own and the U.S. 4th of July, having temporarily relocated to Oregon the day after Canada Day.
It seems in most communities Canada Day has some type of organized affair. And while there certainly are a few large-scale events - notwithstanding this year, Canada Place usually has a fireworks display for its namesake - mostly Canada Day is celebrated in community parks, with cake, barbecues and events for families. It is, in short, a "nice" time.
In Eugene, Oregon, where I spent the summer of 2000 in grad school, the Fourth of July is rife with ritual. Apart from the sales (one advertisement offered the "Independence Day condom that's now 15% larger"!), there is a sense not just of party - and there are plenty of those - but also of true recognition of an abstract concept: independence.
Independence is a bold idea for citizens: the sense that one's life is affected by a struggle for freedom from an undesirable system of rule. American revelers are cognizant of and enamored with the idea that they were one of the first modern nations to start from scratch. Thomas Jefferson and his small band of writers crafted their very own constitution, setting out what the colonists wanted for government, taxation and laws, not with leftovers from someone else's traditions.
The tradition of fireworks displays as a symbolic representation of this freedom stems from collective memory of the cannon fire on the battlefields against the British in the War of Independence. Though we often chastise the intense nationalism of our American neighbors, there is not - for the most part - any sense of American superiority in most of these celebrations. No one is disparaging the former colonial masters. Parades do not proclaim American's greatness on the world stage.
Instead, the fourth of July festivities, like those on Canada Day, have a sense of family - a larger one to be sure - but a national family.
