ON LEAVING THE NEW WORLD

A popular radio disc jockey in the city of Sydney on Cape Breton Island, on the far eastern end of Nova Scotia province in Atlantic Canada, posted a new website welcoming U.S. citizens who wish to flee the nation for the Great North, fleeing in panic from the political circus underway in the Lower 48. The response to the web offer? Lots and lots of hits, people “asking serious questions about the immigration process, the economy.”

New Zealand is reportedly one of the most favored destinations of Americans who are dreaming of permanent flight to anywhere but here.

My father-in-law, Bob, is 90 years of age. A World War II Navy veteran who knows a thing or two about the real horrors of war, turned to my wife, Catherine, and said he wanted to leave the America he fought for. The final Republican debate before Super Tuesday was too much for him to bear, he admitted. “I’m ashamed of what I saw,” he said.

I told him New Zealand was a nice stop, something like the New England of the Southern Hemisphere. He said, “If you go, I’m going with you.” I replied, “It’s a done deal, Bob. I’ll get the rowboat ready.”

Rumor has it Oprah wants out. Al Sharpton admitted on television he is thinking of “reserving my ticket to get out of here.” Popular Raven-Simone on ABC’s The View offered, “I’m going to move to Canada with my entire family. I’ve already bought my ticket, I swear.” Whoopi Goldberg is a gone girl, too.

Ah, this brings back fond memories. In the late ‘60s, scores of young people converged on Norton, Vermont, on a parcel of spruce bog smack on the Canadian border, and built a community they called Earth People’s Park. Most were fleeing the draft and some were hard-bitten anti-Vietnam War protestors. Why settle in Norton? Simple. You could step across the Canadian border in a minute and melt into the spruce and fir trees, should “the Feds” come calling with arrest warrants.

Well, it’s déjà vu all over again. Some of our good and thoughtful citizens are thinking of packing the bags once again to disappear into the world’s scenery somewhere, anywhere but the homeland. They can’t abide the childhood sandbox spats that pass for political debates. They gnaw at the fingernails, wondering how it is possible that the U.S. Congress can do nothing, nothing at all to address the real and serious needs of the people and the outsized problems this nation faces.

The disgust is palpable. Since people believe they are powerless to fight, they dream of flight, of leaving the morass that is the current state of affairs in the U.S. of A.

So Atlantic Canada’s favorite radio personality Rob Calabrese has read the American tea leaves and is offering asylum, “a Trump Free Zone”, for U.S. refugees.

But why settle in cold Canada? Why not consider a Tinkerbell existence in Panama or Belize, the expatriate hot spots nowadays. These Central American destinations are warm as toast all year, boast cheap living day to day, and are taxation lightweights.

Frankly, most of the three million Americans who leave the United States for good each year move toward the Equator rather than the Arctic Circle, and a fair number sail way to retire or make a career move rather than jump ship because of political storms brewing. Nonetheless, far greater numbers of citizens leave these shores than most recognize. As author John R. Wennersten penned in Leaving America, the New Expatriate Generation, the outflow of Americans “is an important reexamination of the central stories in the history of American culture.”

Most assume everyone is frantic to get into this country. “Ain’t necessarily so,” as the old show tune goes.

One side of my family came from Norway in 1912 and settled first in Halifax, Nova Scotia. So, forgive me if I’m a bit partial to that Cape Breton Island offer out there on the eastern end of the beautiful province. And I have a brother who left the country for Canada. He’s a Canadian citizen and has been for more than 30 years. He and his family can’t say they are suffering oppression from a socialized health care system nor troubled by the ultra-low tuition rates of Canadian universities that his son and daughter attended.

Could I live in Canada? I could, yes. I keep that rowboat fixed up and the oars well oiled. There’s a good rain slicker stowed away, a wool hat, and some pickled herring, too. I may need that boat come election day.