Lunching today with dear friend Stephanie in Uptown Dallas, our conversation turned to global affairs.  We discussed the many places where America had dipped its toe, and what some around the world may think of us in general.  We’re not the first population to be loved and/or hated simultaneously.  (Let’s face it -- humans are rarely if ever fully in agreement or completely happy.)

I considered that Catholicism, my childhood religion, has not always been the most loved of faiths  (I guess there were a couple of crusades/church endorsed invasions and a greed driven Pope or two, occasionally named Pious, but I digress).

“Are those all of your brothers?” a woman asked when seeing all six of us at the grocery store. 

“Yes, ma'am", I replied in a 5 year old voice.

“Wow!  You MUST be Catholic!”

I didn’t think my mom was ever going to stop laughing when I asked her why everyone knew we were Catholic.   And I just couldn’t understand why a stranger would want to make fun of us.

As I grew older and sprinted further from the Catholic church, I decided I was much better suited for the Episcopalian faith.  In my mind, they were user friendly Catholics.  They carried on many of the same rituals with a great deal less of the guilt.  And, although I might have imagined it, people seemed to like the Episcopalians more.  Maybe folks just felt less threatened because of their laid-back-accepting-ness.  They let women become priests.  They allowed gays to congregate and even some to bishop.  And they did a lot of community service even without a court order.  I’m not completely sure why everyone seems to love the Episcopalians, but I knew I felt it, too.

And so, as I polished off the Chicken Francaise before me, I considered the U.S. and how the world might view it differently.  How could we become the Episcopalians of Nuclear weaponed super powers?  The skies parted, I heard an angelic choir and the answer hit me as if were transported by the chariots of heaven on the highest of holy days.  We could become South Canada!

Hell, everyone in the WORLD loves the Canadians!  They gave us Wayne Gretzky, the Mounties, Molson Beer and established “Yah, hey der!” as an accepted greeting!  No one hated Canadians.  They hadn’t recently (if ever) invaded a foreign country.  They'd never held a cold war outside of an ice rink.  And the last time it seemed they get mad at any country at all was us for acid rain.  Frankly, who could blame them for that?

In all of my 45 years, I’ve never met a mean Canadian.  Sure, I know there out there, but I haven’t found one yet.  And people in Europe don’t complain about “Ugly Canadians”.  It’s us in the U.S. that tend to take the brunt of global ill will.

I know there are those out there that think I’m being unpatriotic.  No, no, mon cheri!  Far from it.  It would do us some good to be seen as the kinder, gentler nation that I know we are.  And the Canada/South Canada alliance certainly comes with a host of benefits.  We would no longer have to argue about the possibility socialized medicine, as they already have it in place.  We could simply love or hate what was already there!  No one would have to cross the border to buy Canadian drugs at 60% less than we charge our own citizens down south.  We wouldn’t need to lead the invasion of countries where we’re not welcomed or invited, because as Canadians we wouldn’t feel that we were all that threatened in the first place.  You betcha!  And finally, all of the Niagara Falls will be able to fall as one!  Can I hear an amen???

Of course, there would have to be some concessions we’d need to make to our new motherland.  We’d have to anoint (or at least recognize) hockey as the national pastime.  Oh well, a small price to pay for more world peace and a surfer dude in flannel national image.   And yes, we’d probably have to be a bit more polite in international public.  No more acting like we can throw our weight around the room.  But in the end, we’d be the people I know we are in the first place – good, kindhearted ones who want the best for all humans around the world.

The U.S. has been given a at times a fair beating and often unfairly bad rap over the years.  As South Canada, we can begin to share ourselves anew.