Running for Your Life: Canada Hey Day

On Saturday, Canada Day!, M and I will be seeing the Great White North moral play: “Come From Away,” which is a seasonal sensation on Broadway. I can’t wait!

Truth is, I come from away. Canada, which in two days (July 1) will celebrate its 150th birthday.

It is with some disbelief that I put this down. That I fondly remember the goings-on during the previous Canada milestone: our 100th birthday. “Now We Are Twenty Million!” by Bobby Gimby … And worse, “A Place to Stand, A Place to Grow, Ontari-ari-ari-Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”

Oy vey, as they say around here.

July 1, 1967, 50 years ago, and I’m eleven years old, a running and jumping and throwing maniac, blinded by the goal of somehow climbing to the gold standard in the Canadian schoolchildren fitness challenge. I miss (ironically) in only one category: long-distance running … Just two kids in my public school managed to pull off gold, and more than a handful were doing their level best to be satisfied with a silver badge, which is what I did muster.

No wars for this generation of Canadian boys and girls. Instead we had our centennial fitness badges we proudly had mom stitch on our coats and vests. Like to think I could still hold mine but it’s vanished in the cracks of time. The memory, though, will always be there.

Now We Are One Hundred and Fifty! Still a stripling in the long history of nation states. But a leader in so many ways.

Here’s to the next 150, Canada. C’mon, you’re the envy of the world. Be smug (if only for a day).

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