A CANADA DAY IN THE LIFE, FINE DINING IN CAMROSE, AND THE BEST AND WORST U.S. PRESIDENTS

In this edition, your imperturbable correspondent celebrates Canada Day with a free beer, goes to town to stock up on supplies, and wonders what’s in store for his Social Security now that the politicians are involved.

My Canada Day entrée, courtesy of the woman I love. That tiny canned-ham trailer is Vicki’s summer office. We call it ‘Gertie.’

CANADA CAMPING DAY

So we spent our Canada Day holiday at the RV campground where we spend most of our summers these days, and one of the activities we indulged in—besides the fireworks, of course—was the golf cart parade.

We saw dozens of flag-festooned carts on the lane in front of our place, and one woman looked at me as she and her co-pilot cruised past and said, “You wanna beer?”

Well, d’oh. “Yeah,” I responded, springing to my feet and momentarily walking aside their cart. She handed me two cans of Molson Canadian. “What’s more Canadian than that?” she asked.

Than two free beers? Not much, I thought. Maple syrup? Poutine? The Avro Arrow? The two Ryans? That’s the best I had in the moment.

Several hours later, we enjoyed our Canada Day dinner. Turkey, stuffing, gravy, roast potatoes, veggies, caffeine-free Coke (the beer was long gone by then). Then, when darkness finally fell (11 p.m. in these parts) the aforementioned fireworks provided the perfect ending to a perfect day in our sweet if imperfect country.

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CAVORTING IN CAMROSE

The next day, my wife and I drove the half-hour to Camrose, the nearest “big” town to our campsite. For a burg with a population of about 21,000, it is surprisingly well-equipped with just about everything folks might want from the place where they live, except for maybe a good football team. But then, Edmonton, population 1.6 million, can’t manage a good football team, either, so there is that.

Anyway, my wife and I were doing what rural folks do on a stray Wednesday: head to town to stock up on supplies. The usual things y’know, the general store, the feedlot, the lumberyard. On the drive, we did what most couples our age usually do, solve the world’s problems in under 20 minutes. (Call us if you want a solution to the Gaza thing, by the way.) We also lamented how, now that we’re both in our 70s, we seem to be busier than we’ve ever been. How did we ever find the time to raise kids? Of course these days, long afternoon naps take their toll on our schedules.

Finally, we decided to grab a bite, and Vicki saw online that River Dogs was selling their good eats at a tent in Mirror Lake Park. We pulled in a few minutes later.

Gotta say, that was some fine dining. We asked that chopped onions be added to the toppings. This is a senior thing. When you’re working, you don’t want onions with your lunch for fear of breathing on someone with oniony breath. When you’re our age, you don’t give a flying f——. Am I right?

That’s Mirror Lake Park. The red awning was where River Dogs were serving their, er, dogs. Customers were already queued and, oh, that’s our trusty 2010 Ford Focus, named ‘The Mol E B’ after Vicki’s mother.

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WEATHERING OUR WEATHER

And what’s up with the weather, eh? Europe is seemingly under the broil, Ontario and Quebec have been enduring record-setting temps, and here in the West, we welcomed the first day of summer with frost warnings to cover our garden plants. Lots of sometimes torrential rain, lots of cold, lots of wind and occasionally, a sunny day. Canada Day was nice here but the rest of the week has been starved for sunshine and clear skies. I can’t remember a shittier summer, unless maybe last year.

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FROM THE ‘DEAR TERRY’ MAILBAG

Re ‘It’s How Much You Get,’ June 29. Hey Terry, tell Carson about the movies on Crave. Most of them are either old, or you’ve never heard of them, or they’re only in French. This is off-topic, but I learned this week the only way to get live customer service at LinkedIn is to sign up for Premium. After you do that, you discover the telephone service is only available in the U.S. Why do we put up with such mediocre service? Joseph Wuest, Edmonton, Alberta

Terry, tell Carson she can find the old movies on YouTube. Just check the running times. There are a lot of trailers but if you see one for 90 minutes, that’s the whole movie. Also, my son Richard has a side hustle fixing up old gaming consoles. Here’s a link to a story about him in the Cape Breton Post. Cape Breton man saving vintage video game consoles one repair at a time | PNI Atlantic News Dick Wood, LaSalle, Ontario

If you want to drop me a note (and risk me publishing it here), just reply to this email or, if you prefer send it to mysundayreader@gmail.com

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A screencap of the email I received from the U.S. Social Security Administration. At least they didn’t tell me that in order to serve me better, they were cutting my benefits.

ANOTHER DOMINO FALLS

Welcome to the Trump era, where every institutional convention is misused and abused. On Thursday, I received an email, as did millions of other recipients of a Social Security pension, detailing how thrilled the Social Security Administration is with the Trump tax bill just passed by Congress. If this seems to you as an overtly partisan message coming from a professional government agency, you would not be wrong. Also, they have my email address because I gave it to them so I could manage my account, not to land on a propaganda mailing list. Sigh.    

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BEST? OR WORST?

So just how well does Trump measure up in the historical ranking of U.S. presidents? After all, he keeps referring to himself as the best president ever. Do historians agree? Let’s see.

Well, the experts haven’t yet rendered a judgment on Le Grand Orange’s present term. Still assessing the damage, I suppose. Yet based on his previous term, Trump ranked—um, let’s see, carry the two—45^th. That’s out of 45, just slipping in underneath James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson, who were the bookends to Abraham Lincoln’s historic terms and the previously agreed upon worst presidents ever.

Lincoln was the top president in the ranking, Franklin Roosevelt was second, and George Washington third. Of the more contemporary presidents, Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama was seventh, Lyndon Johnson ninth, Jack Kennedy 10^th, Bill Clinton 12^th, Joe Biden 14^th, Ronald Reagan 16^th, George Bush the elder 19^th, and George W. Bush 32^nd.

Oh, and lest you think this is just a sample of liberal claptrap, the rankings of liberals and conservatives when broken out were surprisingly similar, though conservatives generally thought better of Reagan. Also when British historians were asked, the rankings were also similar, although they ranked LBJ higher than did the Americans.

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GREAT EXPECTATIONS

“I shouldn’t be so hard on Kris Kardashian for fixating on giving her five daughters names that all start with K. After all, our kids are named Shannon, Lauren, Jamieson, Carson and Gordon.” Me, on Facebook, eons ago, in one of my more reflective moods.

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THIS WEEK IN THE BOOK CLUB

In this week in Episode 13, titled ‘My future is waiting for me,’ Stanley returns to Canada and is sent to Winnipeg to recuperate. Hettie meets him at the station. Two months later, they marry in a small Presbyterian Church there, while he continues his treatments at the military hospital. Only thing is, he isn’t getting better. The wound to his leg continues to fester. Still, he remains grateful and upbeat, telling his wife he’s as happy “as a monkey with a new banana.”

Remember, a subscription to our Book Club is just $5 a month. Sign up anytime and catch up on what you’ve missed.

That’s all for now. Hope you enjoyed it. Ta till next Sunday. / T.