Stepping off the Trump treadmill: A CBC correspondent bids farewell to Washington

I got a journalism tip over drinks from a veteran Canadian correspondent when I first landed in Washington more than a decade ago — a formula for stories guaranteed to thrill audiences back home.

In summary? The more ridiculous Americans look, the better. Guns, rednecks, cultural stereotypes, I was told, if you've got that, you've got gold. Canadians eat that stuff up.

The exchange never left me. As I depart Washington a dozen years later, it's still on my mind, and not because it was inaccurate.

I'll confess, on occasion, I had my fun. A piece of personal trivia: I met Lauren Boebert years before she became famous as a rabble-rousing congresswoman. I popped into her restaurant near the foothills of the Rocky Mountains whose main news draw was that the waitresses all carried guns.

"It's not just the fried jalapeños packing heat," is how I began my Canadian Press story. "A spicy hamburger, here, comes with a side of handgun."

Over time, though, that type of story got old. Like gorging on empty calories — briefly fun, ultimately unfulfilling.

Here I was, reporting from a nation that's won more Nobel Prizes than a string of runners-up combined. It's produced a staggering number of patents, thriving metropolises, inventions spanning the assembly line to the internet, not to mention the blues, jazz and rock 'n' roll.

Surely there were more useful tales from this place? Surely it's more than a backdrop for ego-stroking entertainment — a comedy to mock, a tragedy to pity.

To be fair, every country has its quirks, flaws and tragedies. But we'll talk politics in a second.

Let's start with an accurate stereotype. Anybody in our community of foreign correspondents can confirm it: Americans are easy to interview. Absent rare exceptions, they love to talk. 

This can be jarring to a foreigner, especially if you come from a country with a culture rich in talking points and "No comment" responses.

But here, you stick a mic in someone's face, and before you know it, you're invited into the kitchen, you're having coffee, your notepad's suddenly filling up with their life story.

I'm thinking of all those people who spilled their lives out to me, a total stranger. People who've cried, even offered me hugs when I left.

I was blessed to criss-cross this country and talk to people thousands of kilometres apart — literally and figuratively. People who, if seated together, might barely last a minute chatting politics without arguing. But they shared a willingness to talk to me, and, by extension, to you.