Diffs-US and us

There are lots of differences between us and the US. In the fifties, these seemed tantamount to shopping US "down there" and off we high schoolers went to buy our clothes and shoes before classes began. Those were the days eschewing today's sneaker craze, when saddle shoes were the rage. At my high school, however, we went for the tan kind, not the black and white ones of our thought-to-be -lesser cool rivals across town. Yes, it was a snob school without a doubt. But we loved, as did the other kids, our schools, and basketball rivalries were fierce with cheering hoards turning up for games. These days are different. There seems almost no border between us. When crossings are filled weekends, with long wait times and brands are no longer something we can't get at local malls, cross-visits for other reasons are common. Little shopping is exclusive to Canada or the US. Global times are upon us and that's a good thing in many ways. One of the cross border happenings is the movie business. Our dollar costs are low for the Los Angeles film makers, and Vancouver makes an ideal location not only for its setting amongst the sea and mountains, but also its friendly, moderate climate. Also, the West Coast has, along its sea front, a convenient "slide" down to LA for those Statesiders wanting to plane off home conveniently southward on weekends, too. Those in the business call it, "the four hour rule". Best of all for the West, are its growing facilities to accommodate the film business. These physical and personnel advantages, have become radiantly amenable and evident in the hopeful market of making series pilots. This branch of the business, works desperately, hoping to snatch a major place in the small screen streaming stratosphere. Our rapidly growing teams of technologists and rising studio facilities, make filming opportunities very tempting to producers. Not only that, we are not as a society, crazed about making film stars our heroes as happens elsewhere. We don't haunt the privacy of our actor residents, be they temporarily or permanently living here. For example, if I happen to spot a star daring to stroll along a city street looking to have a coffee, I am not about to scream, slam on the brakes and ask the poor soul, for a twoie shot on my cell phone. So, I saw a film star, so what? Nice, and something to talk about in the staff room, but not for full-blown hysteria. These guys, the actors, are just people, too. Or is that naive? In the US, it's a society built on heroism: it's the person and not the action that draws all the media attention. Gangs of camera freaks pester actors to death literally. The big draw, there, seems to be that everyone wants its face to be someone, and that means getting it into view on camera. Here, we are more concerned with what someone has done or is responsible for, and not their image, necessarily. Our history is not built on heroism as is in the country southward. Take their leaders: presidents, wild west figures, movie stars and generals for example, that fill the annals of US history. It's the face that one thinks about. Their movie business makes it so. Yes, we have Canadian heroes but their work is what we most admire, not their faces and bodies.  Just another difference to make us not smug, but contentedly Canadian.