Memories of Canada Day

Darius over at 'Adventures in Nerdlines' wrote today about his Canadian experiences and it got me to thinking and I remember a story. When I was 15 my friends and I planned a Canada Day party for all our Air Cadet friends. We had the older kids get the booze and we went to Sioux Lake - well really just a swamp - and cut wood for the bonfire. Of course not knowing what people liked to eat at a bush party we of course baked a cake. We made six identical pans of Betty Crocker white cake mix and frosted it with read and white icing to make a Canadian flag. Then my buddy...who was very artistic and who I think now is a pastry chef drew a map of Canada with all the provinces and using Smarties for all the capitals. Then we took one of our army men and cut one leg off and replaced it with a toothpick. This was to create our own Terry Fox figure and we used licorice to show the route he took from the Atlantic ocean east on his cross Canada Miracle of Hope. He was a one legged athelete with a prostetic leg that he lost to cancer and he was going across Canada to raise money for cancer research. To us he is a major hero and important figure in our history. He is as popular a figure in our country as we have ever had. Every Sept all the schools in the country plan and participate in their own Terry Fox runs or walks with the money raised going to fight cancer. So we wanted to honor him with our cake if you can believe that. Of course we had to stop at Thunder Bay Ontario where Terry had to stop. His cancer had come back and he was unable to complete his journey. His failure (if you can call it that) was a rousing success and an inspiration to all of us who were there when the story unfolded. So our cake was our strange little way to recognize him. At the party that night no one wanted to ruin our beautiful cake so it sat uneaten. Several hours into the party the military police showed up and busted all of us - some dirty squeeler who we disinvited called in and ratted us out. Our booze was poured out and we were all taken in the paddy wagon to the cop shop and thrown into the cells until our parents could be called. The cops took our cake and were so impressed with it that they called the base information officer to tell him that we had make this cake for Canada Day and if he thought it would make a nice story for the base newspaper. Of course it did but the picture they used was of the four of us, in the holding cells...with our Terry Fox Canada Day cake. No word of a lie. We were famous...and delinquent. At the time I believed that the cake kept us from staying in jail or having criminal records. Of course they never charged us with anything nor could they but I didn't understand that at the time. Dirty screws never got me my lawyer or my phone call. So we ended up sharing our cake with the cops and that is my best Canada Day story. The cake above is not our cake and to this day I regret I have lost that newspaper article or even taken a picture of our cake.