Peace is a pretty nice way to forget a sliver

I’m off to Peace, ohh-ahh-ooh-ahh-ooh-ahhh.

The oohing and ahhing has nothing to do with peace, of course. Nothing to do with good will between Canucks and Yanks for the past gazillion years (Really, what’s the difference between Canadians and Americans, really? The only thing I can think of is that Canadians get gouged for gasoline by the liter and we get gouged by the gallon.

They say ‘aye’ and we say ‘you betchya.’ That’s it.

Other than that, we put our pants on the same way and we both watch the NFL and Red Green.

But I’m not oohing and ahhing over that fact.

Nope, I’m oohing and ahhing because I got one of those little slivers in my toe. You know the kind. Small as hairs, but somehow they find a nerve that goes straight up your leg and pinch a spot right at the base of your skull.

One second you feel it. The next you don’t. On off. On off. You tear off your shoe and clean it out (of course it’s full off chaff and crap) and then you take off your sock and shake that out and then you try to clean off your foot and then you put the sock back on and the shoe back on and take two steps and there it is again, right after the second step.

Ohh ahhh.

So you take off the shoe and the sock and then clean off your foot again and then turn the sock inside out for good measure and it’s still there so you say to heck with it and sort of limp along.

You’re at this Peace ceremony with the Rotarians (they thought up the idea of the Waterton-Glacier Peace Park 75 years ago). A great idea, really, especially when you start looking at the numbers, and by that I mean the economic numbers, that peace brings. Peace between Montana and Canada, for example, means nearly $4 billion in trade.

That’s billion, with a B. Peace is not only nice. It’s big business.

But on this sunny Sunday morning peace also means about 200 Rotarians and other fine folks at the border celebrating the deal with a short but interesting ceremony and a pretty cool handshake — literally — across the border.

I see only one problem with peace and that is this: Few media care about it. I was the only American journalist there. The Canadians had one TV station there and one newspaper, the Lethbridge Herald.

Oh well.

Thing is, somewhere along the way that sliver stopped bothering me. Peace will do that to you. Makes you forget the bad in the world for awhile. Makes you remember the value of a smile and a handshake.

And that, my friends, is mighty nice.

Chris Peterson is photographer and a reporter for the Hungry Horse News.