Dave’s Whiteboard

When I was growing up in Detroit, I looked forward each year to the Freedom Festival — a cross-border celebration that included Canada Day (known in English-speaking Canada as Dominion Day until 1982) and the Fourth of July.

Some Americans don’t know much about Canada (including how to pronounce “Newfoundland”). Maybe, as Pierre Berton suggested in Why We Act Like Canadians, it’s the lack of a revolution or a civil war. So, for those who missed the 15 minutes spent on Canada during high school, July 1st is the anniversary of the 1867 agreement by Upper Canada (now Ontario), Lower Canada (Québec), New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia to form what Sir John A. Macdonald and Viscount Monck wanted to call the Kingdom of Canada.

Back to the border: my parents, two brothers, and I had emigrated from Nova Scotia; Detroit and Windsor were and are filled with other members of the Cape Breton Island diaspora. We’d shuttle back and forth over the bridge or through the tunnel, and day trips to watch the massive fireworks (shot from barges in the Detroit River) were a prelude to our annual summer trip down home.

No quotation marks to set those last two words off– like Hemingway’s Paris, Cape Breton Island is a moveable feast. My dad arrived in the States in 1951, but when he says “down home,” there’s only one place he means. Me, too.

So July 1st takes me back home (as do shortbread, fiddle music, and the sound of waves). And as July 4th approaches, I always think of John Adams, wrong in a small thing but on the mark with the big picture, as he wrote to Abigail:

The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. . . . It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfire and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

To fill out these three days (July 1st, July 2nd, and today), David Hackett Fischer in today’s New York Times adds the name of Samuel de Champlain, who founded the city of Québec on this day in 1608.

Showing he had his priorities straight, nearly two years earlier he founded l’Ordre du Bon Temps. Whichever holiday you mark, and whenever you mark it, may you like Champlain’s companions be joyful and of good cheer.

Photo of the Bluenose II under sail in Halifax harbor by learningful_rcb.

A 48-inch water main in my county ruptured on Sunday night, though I didn’t learn about it till Monday evening. (Apparently I need to check the local news or its feed more often.)

Usage restrictions have been lifted, but the local water authority’s “latest update” (currently 11 hours old) says that residents of certain areas should boil water “as a precaution” for the next three days. They provide a link to a map for those areas:

You can click that image if you’re so inclined. I’m still trying to figure stuff out:

• If they’re serious when they say RED AREA: BOIL WATER ADVISORY IN EFFECT, how come the red area extends beyond the tops of clickable areas A1 and A2?
• And beyond the top of the map?
• How come the current announcement and the FAQs don’t say how long to boil water? (That helpful info is in paragraph 3 of the advisory issued on Monday at 7:15 a.m.)

As you may have guessed, I live in the terra incognita beyond the top edge of this nonscrolling map. Way out in the wilderness somewhere past the A1/A2 border, with the other 40,000-plus residents of my tiny  village.  Hic sunt marmotae monaxae.

A side trip today:

For over 120 years, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have fielded the Musical Ride, a troop of riders who perform various maneuvers and cavalry drills. In part it’s a link to the force’s origin as the North-West Mounted Police; in part it’s an expression of good will.

The Musical Ride appeared in Windsor, Ontario, on May 25th. At the start of the 7 p.m. performance, Inspector Bruce Whillans, commander of the Musical Ride, requested permission to begin from the senior Mountie present.

That was former Constable Hugh Ferguson, who joined the force in 1934, at the age of 21.

My sister, who like my parents lives in suburban Detroit, learned that the Musical Ride was coming to Windsor (which, if you’re not up on geographic minutia, is south of Detroit). She called to see if she could get tickets for Dad. He ended up as the guest of honor, escorted (as in the photo) by Constable Wally Silver.

One of my favorite undergraduate courses dealt with folktales, and a major topic was urban legends. We read Jan Harold Brunvand, who’s renowned in part for demonstrating that folk tales aren’t limited to centuries past or primitive cultures. Internet warning spam is an example — the FCC’s going to tax email, telemarkers will get everyone’s cell phone number, that sort of thing. (Thank goodness for Snopes.)

I’ve run into one internet urban legend three times in the past week, which is why the topic’s on my mind. That in turn reminded me of this video from This American Life (found at Jonah Lehrer’s The Frontal Cortex) so compelling — an examination of how we can manufacture details about events that never happened to us.

…Ah, yes, it’s all coming back to me.

One of John Medina’s brain rules is “we don’t pay attention to boring things.” Obvious, in the sense that fire tends to feel hot, but somehow missing as a design principle in a lot of training and education.

I’m working through Merona’s book and have gotten to the chapters on short-term and long-term memory. They’re as good an excuse as any for a side trip to honor a man who once described his goal like this:

 
 
I’d like to take you now on wings of song, as it were, and try and help you forget perhaps for a while your drab, wretched lives. 
 

It’s Tom Lehrer’s 80th birthday. I read once that he has collected newspaper articles discussing his death, though so far as I know he’s still around. For me, and I suspect many other people, his songs on That Was the Week that Was or on his albums moved quickly and permanently into long-term memory.

Three samples to show his range. First, something seasonal:

Then, a trip back to the early 1970s and The Electric Company:

And finally, a link well worth the trip: Mike Stanfill’s Flash animation of “The Elements.”

Happy birthday, Tom.