The Red & White stores were independently owned food stores in the days before the supermarket chains. As a youngster I got my first job in one of them at the corner of Bloor and Hallam Streets in T.O. In Ontario they were serviced by the National Grocers Co. Ltd., the Toronto branch of which was close by the St. Lawrence Market. 75 Front Street East stands on cedar piles driven into the ground 150 years ago when the lakeshore was only metres away. The Esplanade was then a greensward along the water's edge.

There were corner variety shops in those pre-WW2 days but most grocery purchases were made in moderately sized stores of which there were often more than one in the same city block. With a Red & White, there might be a Dominion Store, a Stop and Shop, an A and P, an Adanac (try spelling it backwards) store, a Superior Store and a Loblaw's. That was before monster 'outlets' sold everything from drugs to clothing to garden furniture.

Some packaged goods were stocked in islands where they were accessible to shoppers but most were either scooped or drawn from bulk bins or were on shelves behind a counter at which they could be inspected before being dropped into one's canvas bag. Those that were displayed on shelves beyond normal reach were accessed by a long pole tipped by retracting jaws operated by a squeeze handle. Only occasionally did something come crashing down on the head or shoulders of a clerk.

The average shop of that kind lacked the elegance of Michie's (pronounced 'Mickey's') high class city centre emporium at the south-west corner of King and Yonge. There ladies, as distinct from mere women, sat with their shopping lists on high stools before a polished wooden counter while smartly attired young gentlemen brought goods from the far reaches of the shop to lay before them. Upon approval they were transferred by shop staff or personal servants to a waiting vehicle. That formality was part of the dignified 'carriage trade'.

The carriages involved were, of course, more than 'rigs'. They were, originally, horse drawn and, later, chauffeur driven. Lady Gooderham whom I knew in her old age shopped there. So did the Ladies Flavelle and Falconer. Even Lady Eaton, though her family's department stores carried comestibles, visited Michie's. The elite all did.. Barristers and retired military personnel popped in for the tobacco unavailable at Eaton's. Residents of the nearby King Edward, Royal York and Prince George hotels patronised Colonel Michie.

Meat was not to be found in a grocery store in those days. Nor were pork and other flesh food always sold together. Pork butchers ran a specialised business. Meats were on offer in places where a great chopping block supported by sturdy legs stood on a saw-dust covered floor apart from the counter where wrapping was done and payment was made.

In Gordon Joedicke's Red & White Store I was paid $1.50 for an afternoon's work. Good money then. Another lad made deliveries on a bicycle with a wire basket. .At Christmas and Easter, not yet seasons frowned upon by secular authorities, the shop windows were festooned with crepe paper streamers - mostly red and white to match the shop's own colours. The excitement generated was not as great as that produced by the window displays at Eaton's or Simpson's downtown but the largest Joedicke window featured an operating electric train one December and a cage of live birds one Easter. Those were the days, my friend.

Many still thought our national colours to be the red, white and blue of the Union Jack. School children learned the significance of the three crosses. Each colour had its meaning. Red was for sacrifice, white for purity (or was it snow?) and blue for loyalty. That's what citizenship meant - ultimate dedication, pure motives and the loyalty that made us a nation distinct from the many violent, revolutionspawned regimes in the Americas. Canada was unique, a Peaceable Kingdom of nonaggressive people. 'Ut incepit fidelis sic permanet" says our Ontario provincial motto - "As it began loyal, so it remains". Loyal to what? Loyal to peace, order and good government under the law and to the constitutional parliamentary rule symbolised by the Crown. If we don't value that still, we're losing our identity in a destabilising and dangerous world.

A 1921 Act of Parliament, given Royal Assent by George V, had designated red and white as Canada's national colours. They appeared first on the lances of the RCMP ceremonial riders.. When a distinctive national flag was designed those colours trumped the suggested right and left blue ('sea to sea') panels. We have, after all, three sea coasts. One argument was that a child should be able to create the flag on white paper with one red crayon. We now await a new national poem in honour of our flag, perhaps a reworking of Alexander Muir's "The Maple Leaf Forever" in order to retain its stirring tune.

The three red, white and blue colours still survive when the Maple Leaf unfolds against a cloudless sky. One sees that on postage stamps and it is emotionally evocative "where'er our banner flies". The North American Indian poetess, Pauline Johnson, wrote "I can face the world and brag / That I was born in Canada beneath the British flag". That, of course, is no longer the case. The Union Jack, like our old beaver symbol, has largely been replaced.

While many of us have fond memories of the old flag, one feels strongly that none but the Maple Leaf should be flown in this country, except as an occasional courtesy to visitors. Nor, except where pension rights are involved, should dual citizenship be allowed. Canadian citizenship should involve the renunciation of all other loyalties.

So, what did the Red & White stores have in common with the Maple Leaf flag? Just colour association? No, this: like terrorism, nationalism - "my country, über alles, right or wrong" - is a dangerous virus in our One World. Contrariwise, patriotism, like keeping a good shop, is a matter of responsibility and service. That's the connection.