Since we are trading border crossing stories I thought you might enjoy this one. Not long after 9/11 I had to go to Virginia to close the sale on our family home. I drove from Nova Scotia through New Brunswick planning to cross the border near McAdam and take a short cut across to the interstate. When I got to the border it looked deserted so I drove up to the window. A fellow opens the window and tells me to back up to the stop sign about 15 feet back. I did that and this transpired.. He then comes out of his building hitching up his gun and waves me forward. He asks the usual questions like Where are you going? what's your business? etc and my citizenship. I hand him my Canadian Passport. He looks it over carefully and asks me; "Are you a diplomat?" It sounded like a trick question so I figured honesty is the best policy and my wife says am not very diplomatic anyway so I answer "No" "Where your parents diplomats?" "No" "Where is your birth certificate?" "I don't have one with me. I travel with my Canadian passport." " It says here you were born in the US." "Yes, I was but I am a Canadian citizen." "We don't care what you are in Canada. In the US you are an American. I don't have to let you back in unless you have a birth certificate." "Isn't my Canadian passport satisfactory. I am Canadian." (and this isn't even a beer commercial) "When I became a Canadian I was told by US immigration I could not hold dual citizenship." "That's all changed. You need a birth certificate now." At that point a short black girl with a huge gun on her hip comes out followed by a tall white guy in camo gear with a rifle. They began searching my car while the border fellow explains to me that I can't work in the US without a green card. Now I AM puzzled. My passport is sufficient to establish that I was born in the US but not sufficient to prove it enough to cross the border. Meanwhile he says I can't work in the US because I am a Canadian and need a green card. The magnanimous SOB finally lets me through with the warning that they won't let me through again without a birth certificate or a US passport. Throughout all this which took an hour (yes, Virginia and hour) the man was rude and insulting and not one other car crossed the border in either direction. For once in my life I kept my mouth shut nor did threaten to call my lawyer (my son the criminal lawyer since I ma beginning to feel like a criminal in the land of the paranoid. No doubt I kept them entertained in what is a boring job but I will never look upon the US in the same way. "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me: I stand beside the golden door." Unless, of course, you had the sheer effrontery to become the citizen of another country. (Gilbert and Sullivan, where are you when we need you?) Cheers John Winters *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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