Today, the fox says, “What assignment?”

Yuppie. I spaced out on another assignment, this time for my History of Canada After 1867 class. I was supposed to “hand in” (read : email…clearly. a vocabulary update is needed) my obituary assignment today and I totally forgot.

This shit keeps happening. I just cannot assemble my effluvia. Like I have said more than once before, when school ends, I turn back into a puddle, and all thoughts of homework and assignments fly out of my mind in the pursuit of more time acting like a kid.

It’s part of my youthful appeal.

So it is not a matter of solutions. The solutions are obvious. Fill a calendar slash reminder program with every assignment from every syllabus (sorry, “course description”) and set it to remind the crap out of me till I do whatever will be due soon.

But that would require growing up, which is the real problem. Holding myself accountable. Thinking about the future in concrete terms. Stop ignoring things until they become a problem. Give up the whole “oops, I am so absentminded!” routine.

Yes, I am absentminded. But there are a plethora of tools at my disposal to overcome it. And because I know this, absentmindedness is a choice.

As is not wanting to grow up and have to become a real little boy. Much less an actual adult.

Dude near me is talking on the phone with his mouth full. Gross.

(—)

Back home now. The previous stuff was typed while I was waiting for my bus.

Learned some very cool shit about Canadians in World War II today. Not only did Canada liberate Holland, but before that, they were already heroes to the Dutch.

The Nazis, because pricks and not actually nearly as efficient as they liked to think, didn’t feed the Dutch. They invaded, took everything they could get their hands on and exported it to support the Nazi war machine, and kicked the Dutch off their own farms so they could take them over and use them to feed Nazi soldiers.

So the Dutch were starving, especially in West Holland, which was the most urban part of Holland, and as we all know, cities, unlike farms, are not self-sustaining.

This all was building to be a very heavy duty starvation event. So the Canadians organized a program of food drops, where Allied bombers dropped food packages to the Dutch. Imagine, food from the sky, like manna from heaven.

But it wasn’t enough, especially for West Holland. So the Canadians did something that I feel only Canadians could have done at the time and that I think serves as a shining example of just what it is about this nation that makes us great :

They negotiated with the Nazis.

They struck a deal with the Nazis that cleared one very specific route through Holland allowing Canadian trucks to travel through Nazi-occupied Holland and bring food to the starving Dutch. ^[1] Soon, the Canadians were not just bringing food, they were setting up “feeding stations” (like soup kitchens) to feed the Dutch in the most direct and effective way possible. They even had soldiers with food go door to door looking for people who were too weak from hunger to make it to the feeding stations.

And in order to do they, they had to overcome stiff resistance from the Americans and the British, who refused to allocate any resources for the mission. All they said was “We can best help the people of Holland by defeating Hitler.”

Which was obviously bullshit, because in order to help a people, they have to be alive to be helped!

That’s why it took Canada…. sweet little Canada, the little guy with a heart of gold – to see past the war, past the sides, past team-think, to address the humanitarian crisis in Holland instead of thinking of everything in terms of battles and war.

That’s like, the most inspirational thing ever for my Canadian heart. We were the only ones who knew that people were more important than total war. We were the ones with both the perspective and the moral standing to sit down with the Nazis in the middle of World War II and hammer out a way to save millions of Dutch lives. We were the ones who wanted to save people more than anything else. We were the ones with the true heroism to ignore glory, victory, and treasure and concentrate on what really mattered : saving human lives.

Even the fact that we were willing to design and implement this system of food and feeding stations on the go, and that our soldiers didn’t think it weird that they were being asked to look for starving people instead of, ya know, killing.

That’s the spirit that makes Canada the peacekeepers everyone trusts. It’s what makes our armed forces different from those of other countries. And it’s that spirit that makes this the country unique, special, and amazing force for good in the world that it is.

Damn, I wish I had learned this stuff for Canada Day! I have never had a clearer understanding of what the Canadian spirit, and Canadian identity, is all about. I feel such pride.

Quiet, heartfelt, reserved pride, as befits a Canadian.

Oh, one last thing : there is a kid in my Canadian History class who looks exactly like an extra from a 60’s Godzilla movie. Right down to the sideburns. It’s amazing. He would not look out of place sitting at Yoko Ono’s knee at one of her groovy poetry readings. Or being slightly too into it at a Rolling Stones concert circa Altamont.

Time for me to stop gabbing at you nice folks and get working on that obituary assignment.

Step one…. kill somebody. Makes sense….

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.