Patricia Pearson: The day my grandpa showed me Canada's new flag
In early February, 1965, the Americans went into North Vietnam while my grandfather, Lester B. Pearson, was babysitting me. (I don’t know why it seems odd, almost comical, that the leader of a nation would be looking after his 10-month-old granddaughter, but that’s how cynical our modern lens on politics has become. Even mine.)
My mother and grandmother had taken my siblings for a skate at a nearby Ottawa rink, and now there were bombs dropping on Hanoi. I try to imagine how this domestic scene plays out in the absence of a Blackberry or an iPhone. Perhaps his distractedness merely took the form of churning thoughts, while I crawled excitedly about on the floor, relishing my newfound movement.
The escalation in Vietnam would later lead to a painful and resounding clash between L.B.P. and L.B.J., culminating in a startling episode at Camp David where Johnson berated my grandfather for urging diplomacy with Hanoi during a speech in Philadelphia.
“Mike,” he growled – or drawled, I suppose, in full Texan twang – “Why did you have to piss on my rug?”
Clashes were also taking place between granddaddy and John Diefenbaker, leader of the Opposition, on a more or less continuous basis as they asserted their differing visions. A newspaper cartoon at the time depicted Mike, Dief and the NDP’s Tommy Douglas as toddlers at the beach, bashing one another over the head with plastic pails and shovels over what to put on our flag.
READ MORE: http://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/patricia-pearson-flag
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