10-01 Confusing

It is 1960 and I am being introduced to a bank president at a posh wedding in Saint Paul, Minnesota as John Bulloch from Toronto. After a short chat he said, “About Toronto, Mr. Bulloch, what is the weather like up there?”
I was dumbfounded because if a bank president does not know that Toronto is south of St. Paul, what does the average American know about Canada. Do Americans really care? Should we care? Confusing.
Another story and this one is from San Jose in 2016 when I was approached by a couple who asked me to sign a petition to support the elimination of the death penalty in California. I had to explain that I was a Canadian visitor and that Canada had eliminated the death penalty 40 years earlier. And Europe had eliminated it as well. Why do Americans like capital punishment?
Then a family member plays golf in Florida with three retirees and they all have guns in their glove compartments of their car that they transfer to their golf bags when they go out on the course. Why do Americans feel so threatened? Do they just love guns?
And in 2018 in California, my wife was admitted to a hospital for two days because of a nosebleed. The bill from the hospital and those providing services to the hospital was $53,000 US. What do people do in the US that can not afford insurance? Is it vested interests and big money that controls their Congress? Confusing.
It is so difficult to say whether Canadians or even Europeans hold any strong feelings of anti-Americanism. Often these feeling do not manifest themselves in visible public demonstrations but quietly in terms of what they say and do.
I remember being told during my travels to Europe to always wear a Canadian pin on my label so people will know I am not American. And as well I was told to pay with cash. Only Americans pay with credit cards.
In Italy they not only wanted cash but wanted to provide services without providing receipts. It looked like folks were trying to beat their VAT tax.
It was always hard to determine how real anti-Americanism was in Europe when everywhere I went there were huge line-ups at the local McDonald’s franchise. I remember breakfast for my wife and myself at a hotel in Copenhagen costing $80 US and only $20 US at the local McDonald’s.
Certainly, there was a lot of anti-Americanism around the Muslim world after President G. W. Bush invaded Iraq. And linking anti-Americanism with US presidents is an easy concept for the media to promote. It declined under President Obama and is on the rise again under President Trump.
Anti-Americanism seems to be a political phenomenon as much as anything. And politics is about perception and emotion. It is not about Americans as individuals. I have met Americans all around the world and they did not seem to be much different than Canadians.
You may have heard the comics describe Canadians as “Americans without guns”. I would put it another way. Canadians think of themselves as being “not American”. Not “anti-American”. Not too confusing, I hope.