Many letters have come in on the subject of the Canadian maple leaf slapped on American backpacks. Let me publish just one more — splendid ending:

Jay,
I suspect many Americans have placed the maple leaf on their backpacks out of fear, rather than disgust with their mother country. I backpacked and rode the rails through Europe with two other American teens in the summer of 1979. For our protection, we were advised to place maple leaves on our backpacks and pretend we were Canadians. We were all military kids, and the European lefties/commies were all riled up about American involvement in Latin America (El Salvador in particular), support for Israel, and anything else they could think of. As proud Americans, we opted not to follow that advice. We did not place any symbols identifying our nationality on our backpacks, but that in itself gave us away, as every other nationality did so. Fortunately, we were threatened in a meaningful way for being Americans only once, during our entire trip. It was when we faced down — I kid you not — a moped gang in the streets of Rome. Sissy Italians: all talk, no action, crappy transportation.

And a P.S. from me: Please don’t send any Italy-defending mail my way, for I am an Italophile — or whatever the proper word is — from way back. If you can surpass me in Italian-love, you truly have tomato sauce in your veins. Still, the ending of that letter was boffo (and wisely observed, culturally).