I read this an I howled with laughter, this guy is funny.
'Don't tell me I don't know my Canadian history'
JEFFREY SIMPSON
"Fred, you mean Rudyard Griffiths of the Dominion Institute whose Remembrance Day survey revealed Canadians' shaky grasp of military history."
"That's the one. Just the other night, Mildred and I rented Gone with the Wind about the fall of Quebec, although I thought the handsome guy with the slicked-back hair and the pencil mustache didn't much look like Wolfe."
"You mean, Fred, the film about the fall of Atlanta to General Sherman's Yankee forces in 1864. The guy with the mustache was Clark Gable, who told Vivien Leigh, 'Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.' "
"Phooey. Peter MacKay said that to Belinda Stronach. Don't tell me I don't know my Canadian history."
"Fred, a lot of Canadians in the survey thought General Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the Army of the Potomac in the latter stages of the Civil War, was Canadian."
"He was a sneaky one. Fortunately, Grant remembered how we had repulsed the Yankees during the War of 1812-14 under Sir Isaac Newton, whose troops threw fallen apples at them when they tried to cross the Niagara River."
"They built a big monument to Sir Isaac Brock to commemorate that
victory."
"I've seen that big statue to Washington at Queenston, copied on the marble figure in Washington. George Washington fought for our British king against the Indians, you know, before the Americans started causing all that trouble for
George III."
"Fred, the Institute's survey found a quarter of Canadians thought Gen. Douglas MacArthur was Canadian. He's the one who said, 'I shall return' after retreating from the Philippines to Australia."
"Nonsense, Louis Riel said that after he fled to the Yankee states between his two rebellions. On the hanging platform, Riel uttered those immortal Canadian words, 'Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.' "
"Speaking of fading away, Fred, only a few Canadian veterans remain who remember the Battle of Vimy Ridge."
"They will know more when they see, as Mildred and I recently did, Flags of Our Fathers. When those boys climbed up the ridge and planted the flag, my heart burst with pride."
"That was Iwo Jima, Fred."
"Geronimo was a great Canadian hero. He held out as long as he could against the RCMP and settlers coming across the Prairies, until at Big Little Horn in southern Saskatchewan, his forces whupped Gen. Custard."
"Fred, it was Sitting Bull, not Geronimo, who led the Sioux in those wars."
"The only sitting bulls I know in Canada are in the House of Commons."
"Speaking of which, Fred, during the recess the Minister of Defence has been giving speeches about the war in Afghanistan. Have you heard any of them?"
"No, I didn't think he was giving any more speeches. I thought the guy with the wire-rimmed glasses got fired after the midterms. I saw it on Fox."
"No, Fred, Gordon O'Connor has been talking about the NATO mission in Afghanistan, the fight against the Taliban, corruption and the poppy crop."
"That reminds me of the poem I memorized in school, the one about, 'In Flanders fields, the poppies blow; Between the crosses row on row.' That Robert Frost could really write."
"Fred, Frost didn't write that poem. He wrote Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening and other poems."
"Only a Canadian poet would write about snowy evenings. What do Americans know about that?"
"Robert Frost wrote a special poem for president John F. Kennedy's inauguration, Fred."
"Kennedy was a genuine war hero. Got his PT boat all shot up in the Pacific. Survived that, but threw out his back planting a tree in Ottawa. Imagine that."
"There are a lot of trees planted in Ottawa, Fred, to commemorate people who fell in the Great Wars."
"You mean the wars between great wars between Ottawa and the provinces?"
"Which wars are you talking about, Fred?"
"The battle of Meech Lake left casualties everywhere. Gen. Charest's current siege campaign of Ottawa in the war of the Fiscal Imbalance is being studied in provincial staff colleges all across Canada. Gen. Ignatieff's campaign in the War of Quebec Nationhood, from what I can see out here, is meeting spirited resistance from the insurgent Trudeauites who, victorious in the Battle of Meech Lake, have regrouped.
"Sort of the way Sir Arthur Currie regrouped his soldiers for further assaults."
"Was he one of Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders in the Battle of San Juan Hill? Or was he Eisenhower's chief of staff during World War Two? Or, wait a minute, with that title he must have been commander of the British forces at Yorkton who surrendered to the Continental Army."
'Don't tell me I don't know my Canadian history'
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"Fred, you mean Rudyard Griffiths of the Dominion Institute whose Remembrance Day survey revealed Canadians' shaky grasp of military history."
"That's the one. Just the other night, Mildred and I rented Gone with the Wind about the fall of Quebec, although I thought the handsome guy with the slicked-back hair and the pencil mustache didn't much look like Wolfe."
"You mean, Fred, the film about the fall of Atlanta to General Sherman's Yankee forces in 1864. The guy with the mustache was Clark Gable, who told Vivien Leigh, 'Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.' "
"Phooey. Peter MacKay said that to Belinda Stronach. Don't tell me I don't know my Canadian history."
"Fred, a lot of Canadians in the survey thought General Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the Army of the Potomac in the latter stages of the Civil War, was Canadian."
"He was a sneaky one. Fortunately, Grant remembered how we had repulsed the Yankees during the War of 1812-14 under Sir Isaac Newton, whose troops threw fallen apples at them when they tried to cross the Niagara River."
"They built a big monument to Sir Isaac Brock to commemorate that
victory."
"I've seen that big statue to Washington at Queenston, copied on the marble figure in Washington. George Washington fought for our British king against the Indians, you know, before the Americans started causing all that trouble for
George III."
"Fred, the Institute's survey found a quarter of Canadians thought Gen. Douglas MacArthur was Canadian. He's the one who said, 'I shall return' after retreating from the Philippines to Australia."
"Nonsense, Louis Riel said that after he fled to the Yankee states between his two rebellions. On the hanging platform, Riel uttered those immortal Canadian words, 'Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.' "
"Speaking of fading away, Fred, only a few Canadian veterans remain who remember the Battle of Vimy Ridge."
"They will know more when they see, as Mildred and I recently did, Flags of Our Fathers. When those boys climbed up the ridge and planted the flag, my heart burst with pride."
"That was Iwo Jima, Fred."
"Geronimo was a great Canadian hero. He held out as long as he could against the RCMP and settlers coming across the Prairies, until at Big Little Horn in southern Saskatchewan, his forces whupped Gen. Custard."
"Fred, it was Sitting Bull, not Geronimo, who led the Sioux in those wars."
"The only sitting bulls I know in Canada are in the House of Commons."
"Speaking of which, Fred, during the recess the Minister of Defence has been giving speeches about the war in Afghanistan. Have you heard any of them?"
"No, I didn't think he was giving any more speeches. I thought the guy with the wire-rimmed glasses got fired after the midterms. I saw it on Fox."
"No, Fred, Gordon O'Connor has been talking about the NATO mission in Afghanistan, the fight against the Taliban, corruption and the poppy crop."
"That reminds me of the poem I memorized in school, the one about, 'In Flanders fields, the poppies blow; Between the crosses row on row.' That Robert Frost could really write."
"Fred, Frost didn't write that poem. He wrote Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening and other poems."
"Only a Canadian poet would write about snowy evenings. What do Americans know about that?"
"Robert Frost wrote a special poem for president John F. Kennedy's inauguration, Fred."
"Kennedy was a genuine war hero. Got his PT boat all shot up in the Pacific. Survived that, but threw out his back planting a tree in Ottawa. Imagine that."
"There are a lot of trees planted in Ottawa, Fred, to commemorate people who fell in the Great Wars."
"You mean the wars between great wars between Ottawa and the provinces?"
"Which wars are you talking about, Fred?"
"The battle of Meech Lake left casualties everywhere. Gen. Charest's current siege campaign of Ottawa in the war of the Fiscal Imbalance is being studied in provincial staff colleges all across Canada. Gen. Ignatieff's campaign in the War of Quebec Nationhood, from what I can see out here, is meeting spirited resistance from the insurgent Trudeauites who, victorious in the Battle of Meech Lake, have regrouped.
"Sort of the way Sir Arthur Currie regrouped his soldiers for further assaults."
"Was he one of Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders in the Battle of San Juan Hill? Or was he Eisenhower's chief of staff during World War Two? Or, wait a minute, with that title he must have been commander of the British forces at Yorkton who surrendered to the Continental Army."
