Notes from a Large Country* - Chapter Two
- corneliusmary
- 6 days ago
- 4 min read
Squeaky Clean
Canada is clean. At least on the surface. Neighborhood houses on the roads through Quebec and New Brunswick show no signs of deferred maintenance. The spacious lots are well kept; the grass is mown and trimmed, and an abundance of flowers grace every panorama.
As we loaded the car one morning, a worker from the hotel was moving through the parking lot with broom and pan in hand. He stopped and stood patiently as I moved around the car, waiting to retrieve a clear candy wrapper. Refusing to be the ugly American, I picked up the wrapper and placed it in his pan. I’m a mom.
With no sight of litter along the highways, the colorful box crushed in the road appeared as an aberration. Because we are on a road trip with our hiking plans canceled because of the closure of all forest trails from lack of rain, I have much time to think. I imagined how that pitiful pile of trash had ended up in the road.
Jean-Antoine and Amelie are hardworking young parents of three-year-old Geoffrey. Fatigued by jobs and the stifling heat of Quebec City, they booked a week at a lake in New Brunswick. Crossing the bridge at Quebec City—they had learned not to rely on the ferry at Saint-Simeon—they relaxed and agreed to stop at McDonald’s. Geoffrey was ecstatic about this rare experience and ordered the Happy Meal with its irresistible Squishmallows™. A few bites of his chicken McNuggets was enough to satisfy his hunger and allow him to turn his attention to the PlayPlace. J-A, as he is known to those close to him, and Amelie were glad to let Geoffrey work off some energy before returning to the car.
“Allez-y, jouez. On prendra votre déjeuner dans la voiture. (Go ahead and play. We will take your lunch in the car),” said his mother.
(I consider it pretentious to insert foreign language with no translation; thus, I will translate. You’re welcome)
Geoffrey showing signs of wearing down, Amelie called to him to visit the salle de bain (bathroom) to clean up for the car as J-A carried the Happy Meal outside. J-A had just placed the meal and juice on the car roof to retrieve his keys and phone from his pockets when the melodious voice of his son interrupted him: Papa, papa (Daddy, Daddy). Regarde, j’ai trouvé une fleur. (Look, I found a flower.)
J-A lifted Geoffrey into his arms, stealing moments to hold his child close, kissing the soft cheek, inhaling the boy toddler fragrance as he burrowed his face into the delicate neck, fondling the head of silky hair, before buckling him gently in his car seat.
You know what happens: J-A, satiated by fats, carbs, and sugars, is feeling that all is right with the world when that melodious voice breaks through the reverie: Maman, est-ce que je peux déjeuner? (Mommy, can I have my lunch?)
Like the cup and box with napkin fluttering sliding from the car and immediately crushed by the truck following them, Jean-Antoine’s mood is crushed by guilt. Guilt for depriving his beloved child of a meal, and greater guilt for being a litterer, a Canadian litterer.
Jean-Antoine, Amelie, and Geoffrey enjoyed their week at the lake and returned to Quebec refreshed. Jean-Antoine, however, never fully recovered from littering. In later years he would be known as the King of Litter, picking up discarded trash from public parks and gardens, filling Home Hardware utility pails, and featured, one time, on the local news.&
But that is in the future before he would clean the rest stop where Mike and I enjoyed a picnic lunch one day. Some of the rest stops along the road were carry-in carry-out–no trash cans — and spotless. This one had trash cans. However, the only litter were scraps slowly burrowing into the ground, as if a gust of wind came through as little Timothy was tearing the corner from the potato chip bag, blowing the scrap out of reach to be found in thousands of years by archeologists uncovering an ancient civilization obsessed with non-degradable material.
Did I mention that I have had a lot of time to think?
But this isn’t about Jean-Antoine or Timothy. This is about my impressions of Canada, including the houses and landscapes reminding me of my time in northern Minnesota. The homes are right out of the 70s: raised ranches, ranches, tri-levels, as if some conscientious objector from the US, refusing to die in Southeast Asia for some old men’s egos, became an architect and copied his childhood neighborhood in Brainerd.
Eventually we discovered deferred maintenance on property along back roads, of which there are many in the Maritime Provinces, but they were few and, to us foreigners, appeared quaint.
And we came across a significant amount of litter. On beaches. Not the litter of American beaches—rusty cans, broken bottles, food wrappers, cigarette butts—this is shredded paper caught in seaweed and washed ashore. Garbage into the sea-garbage out of the sea. All that personal information you shredded carefully and placed in clear bags for recycling was dumped into the sea and is washing ashore in Canada.
Be a good neighbor. Come clean up your mess.
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