Why I "Stand on guard for Thee"

My Papa used to make my sister and I stand up for “Oh, Canada” when we were at his house for the start of Hockey Night in Canada. I still do it sometimes (just last weekend in fact). I think my Papa was being ironic when he asked us to stand up—he wasn’t very patriotic, nor indeed am I. But I never questioned his motives. If it made him happy for me to stand up for the national anthem, I was going to do it. My Papa wasn’t very easy to please, he was a difficult man and a drunk who left a lot of broken hearts in his wake. But he wasn’t that to me. To me he was the grouchy old man with the wet and whiskered rye whiskey kisses. Papa hated Howie Meeker and the Blue Bombers and Barn Swallows. But he loved cribbage, Amma and his grandchildren.