Oh, I forgot to say, HAPPY CANADA DAY! This makes me think of my grandmother, born in Glencoe Mills, near Mabou, NS. Two of her surviving sisters still live down the road from the house where she was born in 1909 and the churchyard where their parents and two other siblings are buried. She went to a one-room schoolhouse (now the Parish Hall) and the old anthem, 'The Maple Leaf Forever', was one of the first things the Gaelic-speaker learned in English. Of course, as they say, you can't eat the scenery, so the Depression forced her and some of her six sisters to leave for jobs in Detroit. One of the proudest moments of her life was when she showed her two daughters, including my mom, both with Master's degrees, the houses she used to clean as a maid in Grosse Pointe. She was a US citizen since 1946 and lived and died in Brooklyn and basically was your typical American-Dream-come-true type, but she loved Canada and went back whenever she could, even during the war with four kids when it took five days by train!
I might be coming to NS later this summer, so I'll see if I can link up with some Buffistas. Any Cape Bretoners here?
Great story! Are pancakes A Thing That's Done today? Is it politically incorrect to add American cheese*? Does the choice of English Colby or French brie for a snack depend on what province you're in?
* just kidding, American cheese is always incorrect. Bleeech.
Originally, but not currently.
Aha. Besides, you think it would be beer today.
Well, there's no tradition of pancakes that I know of, but the Lion's Club does a free pancake breakfast in the Grand Parade (public square in front of city hall) and another next to the Dartmouth ferry terminal. I didn't bother going this year - e have left-over cherry clafouti which is plenty yummy, despite having maliciously not risen at all. Still better than pancakes from a mix.
I don't think we have any posters living in Cape Breton - all of us Nova Scotians are in the Halifax area.
Oh, as to that, the actual pancakes aren't related to Canada Day, as far as I know. It's just that they're the only thing my roommate knows how to cook. I just didn't expect pancakes to be cooking at that particular time.
And Caroma, Halifax isn't all that far from CB, if you were looking to wave at posters. Hell, I hitched there and back the week before last.
Oh well. Maybe I'll stop off there. I've been in both places you mentioned--the Parade has that neat church at one end, right? Not very big but a nice space for pancakes.
Didn't this holiday used to be called Dominion Day? Why'd they change it, so the Westerners wouldn't feel left out? Or is that a different day?
Ouise, don't give up those VCDs quite yet. Instead, put them in a standard computer CD drive.
Load up your preferred file handling software (Windows Explorer) and open the CD. You'll see a folder called 'MPEG2' ('MPEGAV' on Trash) and find the big file in there. Copy that to your hard drive and rename it to a .mpeg file. There you go, view with the media player of your choice.
Then pass the VCDs along.
