Nova Scotia was a very clean place. →[More:]

Still being young he had only been there and to Disneyland in California. Both places were equally terrifying and equally clean.

In the case of Disneyland, the Haunted Mansion had caused him to release just a little bit of pee into his sweatpants, right when an unwanted red transparent ghost sat next to him. He kept his eyes closed for the rest of the ride and refused every other diversion after that, accepting only a pirate's flintlock pistol as consolation and leaving his father with the lingering notion that he might be a big pussy forever.

Nova Scotia was terrifying for a different reason entirely. Whatever ghosts it harbored remained invisible, but there was a huge log bridge over a high river that had to be crossed to return to the farm of his fathers best friend. His father who was normally a kind man refused to carry him across. After a long half hour of coaxing he was persuaded to close his eyes and edge and creep to the middle of the log bridge. Inevitably once there he opened his eyes and was frozen in place with the thought that he would be blown into the water and swept away, to be raised by well meaning but humorless europeans who insisted on black bread at every meal and enemas. Right at that moment, his father took a picture of him. To this day there is a four by six picture of a small boy stuck in a splayed and clearly panicked posture as if blasted through the air by a truck bomb. His eyes and mouth are wide with fear and misery. He is wearing purple corduroys and a dirty sheepskin coat. There are huge trees and giant boulders all around him and the logs DO look unstable and slippery. It is no place for a young boy not raised by bears or eagles.

His consolation this time is to be taken to a parade in the town of "Nova Scotia", there was a brass band and some chubby ladies in sweaters march and hold a banner. He was hoisted onto his fathers shoulders. Then clowns threw candy from the back of a fire truck, a purely Canadian novelty. He feels better. Ten feet behind the candy throwing clowns rolled a fleet of street sweepers and they erased the whole parade as if it never happened at all.