a minor gripe on a major holiday
Canada’s independence day is July 1st, a fact Jude and I learned when we first visited our adoptive nation in 2003. We were starting to look north for relocation, so we took the morning ferry from Port Angeles WA into downtown Victoria, the capitol of British Columbia. Everywhere we looked, starting with an ethnic food festival in the harbour, was bustling with joyous activity. We’d been married a year but had yet to have our honeymoon, so we counted that.
In our 18 years since moving here, we have made July 1st through 4th into a super holiday. This year we marked it with a party on a beach I built along the creek that provides our domestic water and micro-hydro supply. I’ve been trucking in sand for several months. I made my Man Cave outside.
That party marked Canada’s independence day. Yesterday we marked the U.S.’s more simply, with hot dogs, beans and Fritos. And therein lies my gripe: eating contests. Joey Chestnut downed 62 hot dogs at Coney Island to win his 16th Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, an event held since the 70’s. ESPN even televises it.
Competitive eating is nothing new. A pamphlet published in 1630 described the exploits of Nicholas Wood from Kent, England. Wood once at a whole sheep (including wool, bones and horns) in one sitting, and 400 pigeons in another. The first recorded pie eating contest was reported in Toronto in 1878. At least eight deaths have been recorded from it, all from choking.
In a world plagued by war, disease, famines and rapid climate change, we have plenty else to worry about, but could there be a more obscene and needless practice than this?
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Anchor Struck 
AP, you must be evolving into a total curmudgeon…of all things, a timed hot dog eating contest must be the best parody of individual freedom we can create! 10 minutes of absolute freedom to devour possibly the most toxic popular food source available in our over-regulated but monopolized national food supply chain…so that you know you also have a support group including “the Colonel” who calls the annual Nathan’s contest the very grossest event in TV!! I had no idea this was a thing until about 10 years ago as we were attending a family reunion gathering of one of Patty’s friend/fellow soldier Colonel’s that occurred each 4July and someone yelled at the group to gather around the TV…I was overwhelmed to learn that these folks train all year, that there are just a handful of varieties of “professional eaters”…so now I digress. ..hope you and yours are well and doing fine and that your holidays were safe. The sounds and smells of our annual celebration can often jar memories of a time, now distant, but never to be forgotten…thx Marine…😎✌️
You’re welcome, JB. I was in-country for the 4th in ’68, but don’t remember any special meaning given to the day. Eight days later the VC provided some fireworks when I was at LZ Stud spending my birthday with a friend. The eating contests perfectly encapsulate the cluelessness and/or disregard Americans have about the monumental suffering elsewhere in the world. My best to the Colonel. You two should drop by my beach some day.
Allen – I agree wholeheartedly re eating contests. Nina and I were discussing it earlier. It is a disgusting practice. Cheers, Chris
Fritos!?? You can get Fritos in Canada?