O Canada!

I want to thank my dear friend Fred Litwin for inviting me to post here all week.  It has been a delight, and then some.  Thanks to Fred, I now think of Canada as my fourth home, after the U.S., Norway, and the Netherlands, the three countries in which I've lived.  Thanks to him, I've come to appreciate even more the glories of his wonderful country, a land that he obviously loves greatly and that, again thanks in no small part to him, I now love as well.  Through him, I have met so many wonderful Canadians whom I now count as friends. Indeed, never have I met so many people in such a short time whom I have truly come to think of as friends. What they say about Canadians appears to be entirely true: I've deliberately stepped on all their feet, and they've all apologized for it.  Well, that's not exactly literally true, but it's a metaphorical truth.  The fact is that I've been treated so terribly kindly by so many of the Canadians I've met through Fred, and have come to feel so very quickly that they are indeed my friends, that I can't help feeling that there really is something very special going on up there, above that 49th parallel, something that I have been very fortunate to be a part of.  I hope to be among all of you again very soon, and until then, God bless you all, and God save the Queen, and God give Fred Litwin everything he needs to continue his important work.