An American point of view

I thought this was one of the best letters written to us by an American.  We still love the American people.  We want to travel there.  I miss my weekly shopping trips, but when their leader threatens our sovereignty, bullies us and puts unfair tariffs when he's upset, I have stopped going to the US.  Having said that, I have a cruise planned and we are stopping in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Fort Lauderdale.  We have purchased a shore excursion from the cruise line in San Francisco.  We will not spend any money and get back on the ship.  In Los Angeles we may walk around the pier.  We end our cruise in Fort Lauderdale and the only money I will spend is with a cab to the airport. I have a short wait for my flight to Toronto.  I'm so sorry to do this, but I love my country and I never want to lose it.

We lost our oldest friend on purpose. How we start deserving them back.

Ross Boulton

Jul 14, 2026

I’m an American writer in Baton Rouge. I spent thirty years inside this country’s institutions — utilities, audit agencies, the systems that only work when somebody keeps them honest.

This week a senator asked Canada to be nicer to us. This is my answer, addressed to the right people.

The Letter

A senator from California wrote to Canada this week asking them to be nicer to us.

I read it twice to make sure it was real. Then I got angry, and not at Canada.

Do you know what we did? I’m asking honestly, because most of us don’t. It went by in the noise. Our president called Canada the 51st state. Not once, at a dinner, as a joke. Over and over, from behind the seal of our republic. He looked at a country of 40 million people — a country with its own flag, its own parliament, its own dead from two world wars it entered before we did — and called it a real estate opportunity.

Then we tariffed their steel, and their aluminum too — aluminum we barely make anymore. We shut our own smelters years ago, and then taxed the neighbor who kept our factories running. And he told us Canada would pay those tariffs. That was a lie, and not a complicated one. A tariff is a tax collected at our own ports, paid by our own importers, passed down to us at the register. Canada never wrote a check. We did — on every truck, every beam, every can. He taxed us, and called it punishing them. Then we shook them down over a bridge they built and paid for — his own words: he would not allow it to open until America was “fully compensated” for a bridge that cost us nothing. Then, when they quietly stopped buying our whiskey and stopped driving south, we sent senators to ask why they were being mean.

Nobody has talked to Canada like that in over a hundred years. It took us to do it.

Let me tell you what that border used to be. It was the longest undefended border on earth — our best brag. Not the aircraft carriers. The neighbor who never needed to fear us. My grandfather crossed it to fish. Theirs crossed it to watch a ball game. Nobody checked twice.

In 1979, when our embassy fell in Tehran, six Americans slipped out a back door with nowhere to go. Canadian diplomats hid them in their homes for three months, and Canada’s own cabinet secretly authorized real Canadian passports to smuggle them out — their government put its name on our escape. On September 11th, when our sky closed, a town in Newfoundland smaller than a college campus took in nearly seven thousand of our stranded and fed them for days without asking who would pay. When we went to Afghanistan, they came. They buried a hundred and fifty-eight of their own for our war.

That’s the country our president says shouldn’t exist. That’s the country our senators are scolding.

I’ve walked the stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House. Everybody who’s been to Washington has — it was a park with a famous house in it, and that was the brag too: the most powerful man on earth, and you could stand on his sidewalk. This week they proposed fencing it permanently — Lafayette Square too, the park where we’ve protested every president since Jefferson. There’s already titanium fencing around the new ballroom; he bragged a bulldozer couldn’t knock it over, and there’s a bunker going in six stories beneath it. I saw the photograph of that fence and understood something I’d been avoiding: men do not build compounds against people who love them. And I grew up being told we were the good guys — every movie, every classroom, every Fourth of July. So here is the hardest sentence I have ever had to write. Right now, today, we are the country other countries protect themselves from.

Canada figured that out before most of us would say it. Now let me tell you what their answer looks like, because it isn’t rage. Rage we’d know how to dismiss.

A woman in a liquor store in Sudbury turns a bottle, reads Kentucky on the label, and puts it back. Somewhere in Bardstown, a man who’s filled bottles like it his whole working life watches the orders fall and wonders what he did wrong. The answer is nothing. A family in Mississauga cancels the Florida trip they’d taken for eleven years. The motel in Bangor sits empty. The outlet mall in Buffalo where Ontario plates used to fill the lot every Saturday is asphalt and echoes now. At hockey games, they boo our anthem — and if you knew Canadians, you’d know how much it costs them to be rude on purpose.

Here’s the part I need you to sit with. They aren’t angry at you. Ask any of them — I have — and they say the same thing, almost apologetically, like they’re worried we’ll take it wrong: it’s not the waitress in Bangor, it’s not the vineyard family in Sonoma, it’s him. Our trade representative filed them next to China — “the company they’re running in,” he said, of the people who forged our way out of Tehran. And still they keep separating us from the man behind the seal, more carefully than we ever separated them from anything.

Our oldest friend is boycotting us and apologizing to us at the same time.

It broke something in me.

They watched him threaten Greenland, shake down NATO, send masked agents into our streets — and they still made sure the quarrel was with him, not us. They use a word for him up there that our own senators are afraid of. I’m done being more afraid of the word than the thing. They’re right.

So here’s what I’m asking, and unlike Senator Schiff, I’m asking the people who can actually fix it. Us.

Stop waiting for Canada to get over it. They won’t, and they shouldn’t. The empty shelf isn’t a tantrum. It’s the last polite warning a polite country knows how to give.

And understand what they’re actually asking for, because it was never about wine sales. It’s respect. A sovereign country. An equal. Not the 51st anything.

This November, vote like the border depends on it, because it does. Not just the states that always decide things — all of them, down to the school boards. And if you already vote — you’re not who this paragraph is for. The person you bring with you is. One man is not stopped by one election in one place. He is stopped when a whole country stands up at once and takes Congress out of his hands.

Then make Congress use it. We tried impeachment twice. Seven of them were brave the second time. The rest decided their seats mattered more than their country. Send them home too.

And then let the courts finish it. He broke our laws in the open, daring us to care. So care. Try him. Convict him. Put him where a president who betrays his country belongs — in a cell, for the rest of his life, where he can never again reach across a border he didn’t respect.

Not vengeance. Precedent. Every strongman on earth is watching to see whether America punishes this or forgives it. So is every friend we have left.

Our grandparents crossed an ocean to stop men like him, and Canadians crossed it beside them. All we have to do is cross a parking lot.

And I’ll say the quiet part, because some of us are already whispering it at kitchen tables: what if he doesn’t let November count? Here’s what I know from thirty years of watching systems fail. Rigging works in the dark and in the margins. It cannot survive turnout so large the count is beside the point, and it cannot survive forty million witnesses next door who have already shown they’ll call things by their name. So don’t vote like it’s close. Vote like it’s watched — because it is, from fifty feet across the river.

And when he’s gone — because these men always go, never quietly, and never on their own — I want to be there the day the Canadian plates come back over the Peace Bridge. I want to hear their accents in the motels in Maine again. I want to stand in a bar in Ontario and buy the first round with our whiskey — the day it’s back on their shelf and they’ll take it — and tell them we’re sorry, and mean it.

They spent a hundred years being the best neighbor any country ever had.

It was never them.

It was us. So it’s ours to fix.

I don't always agree with our Premier but....

The fear of falling

I was 50 and my legs would collapse and I would fall.  It was a problem with my knees that was fixed with surgery.  I was fortunate I never broke anything.  It happened four times when I was walking downtstairs.  It was terrifying.  

Falling can be serious for anyone.  We've been dealing with a a senior who has been falling. Other people with balance issues could be seriously hurt if they fall.  I didn't know these were available:

“What families don’t realize about hip‑protector pants”

Start with the truth families rarely hear: hip‑protectors aren’t just for “frail seniors.” They’re for anyone whose balance, cognition, or mobility is changing — and they prevent catastrophic injuries.

You could build the post around three pillars:

1. The real risk of falls

Most families underestimate how fast a fall can happen and how long the consequences last. A few points you could highlight:

• A single hip fracture often leads to hospitalization, loss of independence, and long-term decline.

• Many falls happen in familiar places — the bedroom, the bathroom, the hallway.

• People with dementia often don’t remember to use walkers or can’t judge distances.

2. Why hip‑protector pants work

Explain the design in plain language:

• Built‑in pads that absorb impact

• Soft, washable, comfortable fabrics

• Styles that look like regular clothing (this matters for dignity)

You could add a short anecdote — maybe a senior you’ve seen benefit from them, or a moment when you realized how effective they are.

3. The emotional barrier

Families often hesitate because they worry it signals “decline.” Your voice is perfect for reframing it:

• Hip‑protectors are freedom tools, not defeat.

• They let people keep walking, keep socializing, keep living at home longer.

• They prevent trauma that steals independence.

Close with a gentle call to action: “If you love someone who’s starting to wobble, this is one of the simplest, kindest protections you can give.”

Woodwards Department Store, remember the first $1.49 day?

I loved Woodwards Department store.  I remember my grandmother taking me when I was very small. When we were first married, we bought our furniture on the 30/60/90 plan.  You put 25% down, paid 25% for the next three months and weren't charged any interest!

I also remember buying all my groceries there for years!  Their food floor was the best.  They had fresh goat milk delivered every Tuesday and I would be there to get it for Cheryl when she was little.  She couldn't tolerate cows milk.  

I saw this article and thought it was interesting:

One hundred and seventy-four years ago today, on July 19, 1852, Charles A. Woodward was born on a backwoods farm in Gore, Beverley Township, Canada West (now Ontario). While he was born in Ontario, his life's work would forever become part of British Columbia's history.

His story is one of determination, vision, and perfect timing.

As a young man, Woodward left the family farm to work as a storekeeper. In 1875, he opened his first general store on Manitoulin Island, Ontario, gaining valuable experience that would shape the rest of his career. But he believed the greatest opportunities lay in Canada's West.

In 1891, Woodward travelled to British Columbia, arriving in Vancouver just five years after the Great Vancouver Fire of 1886 had destroyed much of the young city. Vancouver was rebuilding at an incredible pace, fuelled by the arrival of the Canadian Pacific Railway and a growing population. Woodward recognized that the city had enormous potential.

In 1892, he opened his first Vancouver store at the corner of Main and Georgia Streets, in what is now Chinatown. Business was promising, but he had bigger ambitions. On September 12, 1892, he relocated to the corner of Hastings and Abbott Streets and incorporated Woodward's Department Stores Ltd.

That corner would become one of the most famous shopping destinations in Western Canada.

Only a few years later, the Klondike Gold Rush transformed Vancouver into the gateway to the Yukon. Thousands of hopeful prospectors travelled through the city on their way north, purchasing clothing, tools, food, and supplies before beginning their journey. Many of those purchases were made at Woodward's, helping the business grow rapidly during one of the most exciting periods in Canadian history.

Charles Woodward believed that customers deserved quality merchandise at fair prices, and he worked hard to earn their loyalty. His stores became known for friendly service, dependable products, and later, the legendary "$1.49 Days," which attracted enormous crowds searching for bargains. For generations of British Columbians, a trip to downtown Vancouver wasn't complete without a visit to Woodward's.

The company continued to expand well beyond Vancouver. The first store outside British Columbia opened in Edmonton in 1926, and over the following decades the chain spread across Western Canada. By 1975, Woodward's had grown to 18 department stores, making it the largest retailer in Western Canada.

Woodward's success in business led to a career in public service. In 1924, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia as the Liberal member for Vancouver City. It was an impressive victory. Twenty-seven candidates competed for six seats, and Charles Woodward received more votes than any other candidate, finishing first in the election. He served until 1928, choosing not to seek another term.

His family's influence continued for decades. His son, William Culham "Billy" Woodward, served as Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia from 1941 to 1946. His grandson, Charles Norman "Chunky" Woodward, became president of Woodward's and later gained recognition as the longtime owner of the historic Douglas Lake Cattle Company in the Nicola Valley.

Charles A. Woodward passed away in Vancouver on June 2, 1937, at the age of 84. He is buried in the Masonic Cemetery in Burnaby, where his mausoleum remains the only one in the cemetery.

Although the Woodward's department stores are gone, their legacy remains. The beautifully restored Woodward's Building still stands at Hastings and Abbott, and the famous illuminated "W" continues to shine over Vancouver's skyline. It has become one of the city's most recognizable landmarks and a reminder of a businessman whose vision helped shape retail history in British Columbia.

For many people, Woodward's was more than just a store. It was where children visited Santa at Christmas, where families shopped for school clothes, where wedding registries began, and where generations found everything from toys and furniture to groceries under one roof.

A Promise, a Legacy, and the Miracle of St. Jude

 

In 1940, inside a modest Detroit church, a young entertainer named Danny Thomas stood at a crossroads. His pockets held seven dollars — the last of his money. His wife, Rose Marie, was expecting their first child. His career was sputtering. Nightclubs and radio gigs barely covered rent, and the dream of show business was slipping away.

Yet in that moment of fear, Danny did something extraordinary.

He placed all seven dollars into the collection box.

And then, quietly, he made a promise to St. Jude, the patron saint of hopeless causes: If his career succeeded, he would build a shrine in gratitude.

It wasn’t a grand announcement. He didn’t even tell Rose Marie. It was simply a desperate prayer from a young man who felt he had run out of options.

No one could have imagined how far that promise would reach.

Against every odd, Danny’s career didn’t just recover — it soared.

Radio led to film. Film led to television. By the early 1950s, Make Room for Daddy made him one of America’s most beloved entertainers. Audiences saw a charming father balancing family and fame. What they didn’t see was the private vow he still carried, tucked away like a sacred thread running through his life.

It took him 22 years to fulfill it.

In 1962, Danny Thomas’s promise became real: St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital opened its doors in Memphis.

But it wasn’t just another hospital.

It became the first fully integrated pediatric hospital in the American South — a radical act of compassion and courage during a time when segregation was still deeply entrenched. Children were welcomed regardless of race, religion, or ability to pay. Families who had nowhere else to turn suddenly had hope.

Danny traveled tirelessly across the country to raise the funds needed. Benefit dinners, charity events, personal appeals — he poured himself into the mission.

And Rose Marie was beside him every step of the way.

Their children — Marlo, Terre, and Tony — grew up with St. Jude woven into the fabric of their family life. The promise Danny had made alone slowly became a shared responsibility, embraced by everyone he loved.

By the time Danny reached his seventies, St. Jude had become inseparable from the Thomas name. His children weren’t introduced simply as his sons and daughters — they were introduced as part of the family behind St. Jude.

On February 4, 1991, Danny attended the hospital’s 29th anniversary celebration. He was surrounded by children whose lives had been saved because of the institution he had built from faith, determination, and seven dollars.

Two days later, he passed away from a heart attack.

He wasn’t buried in a private cemetery. He was laid to rest on the grounds of St. Jude itself — the living shrine born from his promise.

Rose Marie joined him nine years later. Today, both rest in the Danny and Rose Marie Thomas Memorial Garden, a peaceful space that reflects a lifetime of shared devotion.

Their work didn’t end with them.

Marlo Thomas has become one of St. Jude’s most recognizable champions, serving as National Outreach Director. Tony and Terre have remained deeply connected to the mission that shaped their childhood and their family identity.

Danny Thomas received the Congressional Gold Medal for his extraordinary humanitarian legacy — a medal bearing his name.

But the memorial garden bears both his and Rose Marie’s.

Because history remembers the promise Danny made in that Detroit church, but it also remembers the family who spent generations helping him keep it.

Visitors to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital can still walk through the Memorial Garden today. It is quiet, serene, and deeply moving — a reminder that one act of faith can ripple outward in ways no one could ever predict.

Danny Thomas gave away seven dollars when he had nothing left.

From that moment grew a hospital that has saved thousands of children, changed the future of pediatric medicine, and inspired millions.

A promise made by one man became the legacy of an entire family.

And the miracle of St. Jude continues.

Canadian Forest Fires

 

This is the Boreal Forest that spans across Canada

Every summer, as wildfire season tightens its grip on North America, the smoke doesn’t bother checking passports. It drifts, it settles, it stings the eyes and burns the throat — and it crosses borders without hesitation. Yet every time thick smoke rolls into Canada from fires burning in the United States, a familiar chorus pops up online: “Canada, do better.”

Here’s the thing.

Canadians don’t respond in kind.

When wildfire smoke from the U.S. blankets our cities, we don’t spend our time blaming an entire country. We don’t flood social media with accusations or finger‑pointing. We understand something simple and obvious: wildfire smoke doesn’t recognize borders. It doesn’t care about politics, geography, or national pride. And right now, Canada is battling 857 active forest fires, most sparked by lightning — not negligence, not policy failures, not national character.

What we do have is a long, proud history of helping our neighbours.

For decades, Canadian firefighters, pilots, aircraft crews, and emergency teams have headed south whenever American communities are overwhelmed by catastrophic wildfires. And the United States has done the same for us. That’s what neighbours do. They show up. They lend hands, equipment, expertise, and courage.

And that help comes with real sacrifice.

Just this week, Nicholas Dale, a helicopter pilot from Sooke, British Columbia, lost his life while helping fight a wildfire in Colorado. He left behind a family. He gave his life protecting people in another country — people he didn’t know, but cared enough to serve.

Wildfire smoke doesn’t care where a border is drawn. Neither do the brave men and women who put on a uniform and answer the call.

So the next time smoke drifts across the 49th parallel, maybe pause before pointing fingers. Remember that Canadians have consistently chosen cooperation over blame. Remember the firefighters who cross borders without hesitation. Remember the pilots who fly into danger for strangers. Remember the families who carry the weight of that sacrifice.

Vancouver mail history

Mail delivery has certainly changed over the years.  This is how Vancouver handled mail in the 1950s from the train that brought mail from across Canada to the Pacific region.  Who knew this?

The tunnel was built in the 1950s to move mail between the main Vancouver Post Office on West Georgia Street and the CPR station—the site that is now Waterfront Station. It stretched roughly 2,400 feet and used two conveyor belts to move mail directly from arriving trains into the sorting plant.

 BC POSTAL HISTORY

VANCOUVER MAIL PROCESSING PLANT: TUNNEL-CONVEYOR

The following article first appeared in the May 1959 Postmark Magazine. It describes a labour-saving innovation incorporated in the “new” Vancouver Mail Processing Plant with the launch of a mile-long underground conveyor linking the VMPP and the C.P.R. Station. Capable of moving tons of mail in minutes, the innovative system streamlined sorting and transport while operating around the clock with minimal human intervention.

March 12, 1959, marked the inaugural run of Vancouver’s mile-long tunnel-conveyor system, through which mail bags are conveyed in either direction between the Post Office and the C.P.R. Station. The conveyor went into full operation on Monday, March 16th.

The tunnel was built at a cost of $1,140,000 through which the conveyor system operates is approximately 2,400 feet in length. Commencing at the northeast end of the Main Post Office building, it runs (from 15 to 35 feet underground) west on Dunsmuir to Richards, north on Richards to Cordova and west on Cordova to the C.P.R. Station and north into the station.

Nearly a mile of electronically controlled belting carries the mail to and from the C.P.R. Station Mail Room in approximately 9 minutes.

Dynamite charges set, skilled miners in new post office tunnel get ready to blast sandstone under Dunsmuir Street.  Crews are drilling towards each other fro opposite ends of mail tunnel which will link Canadian Pacific Railway station and block square post office.

By the 1960s, Canada Post stopped using trains for mail transport. Trucks took over, and the tunnel became obsolete. It sat unused for years, occasionally rented out for film shoots and even Halloween events. Eventually, due to structural and safety concerns, the tunnel was filled in.

Sportsmanship?

I thought sports wasn't political.  It appears I am wrong.  I watched the Argentina/England FIFA game the other day.  I was cheering for England but knew the best team will win.  I'm sure my UK relatives won't agree with me, Argentina was superior.

I always watch the national anthems.  I didn't even realize they were playing God Save the King until they showed the players mouthing the words.  I had no sound, but I was having problems with my TV.  When the Argentina national anthem was sung I heard it.  I found out Argentina's fans were chanting during the UK anthem!  Pretty disrepectful.

Then I read this that really disturbed me:

ENG1

ARG2

FT

England’s national anthem was drowned out by Argentinian boos and chants before Three Lions fans repaid the gesture as tensions boiled over before their seismic World Cup semi-final even kicked off.

Sharing a storied footballing rivalry, this last-four clash also has a sharp historical edge to it, with conflict over the Falkland Islands forming part of the narrative going into the match in Atlanta.

Argentina invaded the British Overseas Territory in 1982 but emphatically lost the Falklands War in 74 days, which claimed the lives of 907 people: 649 Argentine military personnel, 255 from Britain and three Falkland Islanders.

Argentina still vehemently believe that the archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean, which sits 300 miles away from its east coast, should be under its sovereignty, with the cause enshrined in much of the country’s culture, including its football.

As the players lined up around the centre-circle for the national anthems, Argentina fans were deafening with their chants of “whoever doesn't jump is English”, before heavily booing “God Save the King”.