Saint Victoria is Canada's patron saint. Icons of Saint Victoria are known to have been brought to Acadia by French sailors in 1666. Always identified with the working classes, Saint Victoria was popularized at the height of the bloody trench battles of the War of 1867.
Indeed, she was the centre of mass hysteria in several communities when reports, from both Canadian and American troops, of a miraculous appearance over the field of battle began to leak back to the home front. As Canada's memory of that war faded Saint Victoria Day was eventually overshadowed by the secular nationalist holiday Victoria Day which we all celebrate in a month and a half. Nonetheless, Saint Victoria remains close to the spiritual heart of many Canadians who may not know of that miraculous appearance so long ago.
Seeking an end to the mindless slaughter of trench warfare the Dominion Clockwork and Temperature Control Manufacturing Company of Cambridge, Ontario had been commissioned to develop a ferocious weapon designed to win a decisive victory over Canada's richer and more numerous enemy. The result was a weapon manufactured in small numbers under the greatest of secrecy. A weapon that would alter the course of the war in Canada's favour and subsequently be made the topic of an amendment to the Geneva Convention because of its terrible effects.
A detachment of the Royal Imperial Regiment drilled in the techniques of the new weapon in the woods near Kingston and was transported to the front lines at night by the Grand Trunk Railway. At dawn on July 4th 1867 a new chapter in the horrors of war was written at American expense when the Royal Imperials, boots wrapped in burlap to make their approach quiet, fell upon the Yankee trenches with their fifteen-bladed electric rotating bowie knives a'whirling.
By noon there was nothing left on the American side over six inches in height. The shocking and brutal effect of the new weapon caused the survivors of the Yankee army headquarters to flee back across the border with broken minds and a mess in their pants. The sight of the horrendous slaughter they had wrought left the soldiers wielding the new weapon in little better condition. As sun set over the bowie knife detachment St Victoria was seen weeping above the carnage.
In more modern times she blesses all of you who:
- have worked for a temp agency for more than six months
- drive a Chevrolet Cavalier with no insurance
- are binge alcoholics
- have tried to find homes for unwanted kittens and wound up keeping them
- have eaten Kraft Dinner with a hot dog cut up in it more than once
- became crippled while working for a Class 1 freight railway
- were caught in the Chretien/Martin Employment Insurance crackdown of the 1990s
- oppose bulk water exports but never vote
- have a landlord with "kolbassa breath"
- still owe more than $35,000 in student loans and are over 40
- have neighbours that party all night and sleep all day and are of a different ethnic group than your own
Happy St Victoria Day!
editor's note: a serious case of "helmet head" was acquired while seeking today's image on a bicycle. Luckily, it turned out to be "Helmut Newton head"
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