Re 1-888-fly-flag: When this recent brain-child of the Liberal party was announced, I recalled an incident from a few years ago in which the Canadian flag definitely served a worthwhile purpose and although my inspiration might not help tie the country of Canada together, it could perhaps boost sales of said flag and provide Sheila Copps with some desperately needed validity, if that’s possible.
Anyway, as the story goes, one bright spring morning I noticed barn swallows diving the gable of our house with an eagerness most apparent during their nest-building season.
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Not wishing to be cleaning up after and during such proceedings I hit upon a novel idea.
Rather than spend my morning hanging out the window waving a pillow case, on my next trip to town I purchased a loonie-priced Canadian flag, a size I thought would be effective yet not draw undue attention (being the Canadian that I am) from the neighbors who might think me unduly patriotic.
Armed with such innocent weaponry (even Allan Rock couldn’t have found fault), I hastened to fasten it to the house gable with masking tape.
To make a long story short, it worked like a charm; no more attempts were made by the swallows to take up housekeeping in so formidable a territory.
Later that summer I sold that flag for two bits at a garage sale to an unsuspecting tourist who felt he had received a bargain.
So that little flag made two of us happy.
One thing has bothered me, though, and I wonder about it now and then. Did those swallows and that out-of-country tourist know something we Canadians don’t?
– J. Anderson,
Lacombe, Alta.
