Labor Day 2016 arrived and so did we, with the help of Jon’s step-father Al and his van, in Greater Grand Sudbury, Ontario. We set about setting up house, which was made all the easier, thanks to a series of items Steve, our host over the preceding summer, gave us as he methodically went about preparing his family home for sale.
Editor’s Note: This story contains material which previously appeared in the SoCal Yanquee section of TheStorytellerCafe.com.—Kenneth
The fall semester and two more certification exams were over before we knew it. The arrival, in November, of the Canadian Pacific Railway Holiday Train, in 3ºC/37ºF weather, meant it was time for us to get ready for the holidays, which, in 2016, meant driving back to Palm Springs.
This year, before I could renew the registration on my car, it had to be taken to an official California smog testing center.
Christmas dinner number two with George and Teri
After a brief stay in Hamilton for a holiday meal and to wish Jon’s family and Brodie a Merry Christmas, we began retracing the route I’d driven on my way to Canada (Hamilton to Iowa City and Iowa City to Fort Collins, where we had Christmas dinner number two with George and Teri). After an additional two days of driving we arrived in Palm Springs on December 22nd.
To satisfy Kaiser, my HMO, which for the past three months had been flooding me with text messages reminding me I was long overdue for lab tests and a visit to my primary care physician’s office, I spent most of the 23rd saying “Ahhhh…,” having my veins drained, and getting the car inspected. After the smog test I went to my storage locker and dragged home about half of my stash of Christmas decorations.
Jonny and I spent our first Christmas together in my old Palm Springs flat. We had Christmas dinner number three at Wang’s In The Desert, one of Palm Springs most popular Pan Asian cuisine restaurants.
And then Boxing Day Arrived.
Well before planning this trip Jon and I had decided we wanted to stay together, even though, admittedly, we didn’t do a lot of research on how to go about that. The one thing I had decided on was giving up my one bedroom apartment for a much less expensive efficiency suite.
It took the remainder of the week to shed the bulk of my possessions, cram the remainder into the tiny new efficiency and my storage locker, and clean the flat before returning the keys to the property management company, which would eventually screw me out of half of my deposit.
Early on the morning of New Year’s Eve, we pulled out of Palm Springs on our way to the Grand Canyon where we rang in the New Year.
After spending a frigid couple of days touring Grand Canyon National Park, we took the southerly route, which we hoped would be less wintery, across the US from Williams, Arizona to Oklahoma City. The weather was clear and warmer, but the drive across the vast wide open, unpopulated expanses of Arizona, Texas, and Oklahoma was tediously 3B, (Boring Beyond Belief).
“I hereby declare this a Snow Day. We are spending the day here.”
Late that Wednesday, after battling traffic and roadwork in Tulsa, St. Louis, and Indianapolis, we arrived in Auburn, Indiana completely exhausted. The following morning, I went to the window of our hotel room and noticed there was a light snow falling, it had dusted the top and trunk of my car.
Closing the drapes I turned to Jonny, who was still in bed, and said, “I hereby declare this a Snow Day. We are spending the day here.”
Friday morning arrived and all we had to do was drive up the Lower Michigan Peninsula to the International Bridge crossing in Sault Ste. Marie and we’d be back in Canada and on our way to Sudbury.
It turns out that light snowfall in Auburn was the tail end of a larger storm that left a significant amount of snow on the ground and the roads of the upper third of the Lower Peninsula. It was another tough day’s driving.
By noon that day, poor driving conditions notwithstanding, we arrived at an even snowier Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario point of entry. I drove up to a border agent’s kiosk, where, as I had done during more than a half dozen previous entries into Canada, I answered the agent’s questions as honestly as I could. I said I was an American journalist, working for an American website, writing about Canada for Americans and that while doing so I would be staying with the man beside me in the car.
Much to my surprise and Jon’s, after a few moments scribbling, the border agent said I would have to undergo a “secondary” interview. I was given a yellow slip of paper, not unlike a parking ticket, along with our passports, instructed where to park, and told to await further instructions.
“Journalist,” was the one word scribbled on the yellow slip of paper under “Reason For Referral to Secondary.”
A few seconds after parking, a couple of militaristically clad border guards, hands on their holstered pistols, took up positions around my side of the car. They told me to leave the keys, my cell phone, and Jon, enter the POE building, and, once again, await, further instructions.
As it was the noon hour, and this being Canada, there wasn’t an agent to be seen behind the long processing counter. I could tell from the voices emanating from corridors leading away from the counter they were all in back having lunch.
Eventually a stiff formal man in his fifties, with a brusque speaking manner began what was called an interview, but for all the world struck me as a criminal interrogation not unlike those on TV police dramas.
Where was I from? Where was I going? What would I be doing while in Canada? Why was I traveling with a Canadian, which I could only assume he thought was some sort of unusual circumstance.
I answered all of his questions just as I had during my initial interview and all the previous times I’d crossed the border.
…across the US from Williams, Arizona to Oklahoma City.
When asked why so many crossings in the past, I explained that my website was new and building readership, and that after consulting the Canadian Immigration website and a Citizenship and Immigration information officer at Toronto Pearson International Airport, I was also taking advantage of the six-month tourist visa program.
“How long have you been in Canada?” he snapped. “Have you been here a year?”
Ah, a trick question, in as much as he could clearly see on the terminal before him every time I’d entered Canada and for how long.
“On and off, about eleven months,” I responded.
“What do you mean ‘about eleven months,’” he snapped.
“I’ve returned to the states several times during the past year,” I said.
“You’re a journalist,” he said.
“Yes,” I replied.
“What do you write about?” he asked.
“Canada,” I responded. “There’s a lot of interest in my country these days about…” He cut me off.
“That’s not journalism,” he barked. “You don’t have to be in Canada to write about it.”
At this point I got really annoyed. I’d never argue immigration law with any of these agents, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let some provincial cowboy in a Kevlar vest tell me I’m not a journalist.
Then, fortunately, I paused and realized he was just trying to throw me off balance to see if I’d change my story, i.e., catch me in a lie. I brushed aside his opinion of my career, detailed the types of stories I’d been writing and how essential firsthand access to Canada and Canadians had been to my writing.
He was not impressed.
“Go tell your friend to come in,” he continued in his overly authoritative tone. “Leave the keys in the car.”
I returned to my car which was still under guard by the two armed agents that had shooed me into the building.
“They don’t want to let me in to the country,” I said to Jonny who looked positively dumbfounded by the news.
“Do I look Mexican,” I said to him in complete exasperation.
Edited by
Kenneth Larsen
Join us again on February 13, 2018 for Don’t Forget Your Utility Bill.
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