Here Comes Trouble - Michael Moore [85]
“You two look high,” he said, looking at Jacko and Ralph. “Do you have other drugs on you?”
“No sir,” Jacko said politely. “And we are not high, sir. We’re just happy to be in Canada.”
Oh, brother.
“What exactly are you boys up to? Do you know your boat has no motor?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “This is Joey’s dad’s car and boat, and he didn’t want us to detach the boat so he said we could just take it with us.”
“Uh-huh,” the Canadian responded.
“But there is something I would like to ask you,” I said, deciding to take the plunge. “Let’s say we were draft dodgers, and we wanted to move to Canada—could we do that?”
The “Mountie” looked me up and down, and shouted over to the desk. “Cavity check!”
What???
“This way, please,” said another official from the welcome wagon. And then he stopped, and the pseudo-Mounties started laughing.
“Just kidding. We’re not like the American border guards. You can keep your pants on for us. We’ll just give them a call and tell them you’re on your way back.” More laughs. I was familiar with this warped humor from watching Canadian television. They needed it to counteract all those dreadful beaver and moose documentaries.
They took us back out to the car where, thankfully, they found nothing but the boat without a motor.
“You can turn your car around now and head back to the U.S.,” the head Canadian said.
Pushing my luck, I asked him again. “But, sir—what if we don’t want to be drafted someday. Can we come here or not?”
“If you are here legitimately as an objector to the war, the Canadian government will give you asylum, yes. Have you been drafted? Are any of you in the armed services?”
“No.”
“Then have a nice night. And be on your way.”
We got back in Joey’s car and headed back across the Blue Water Bridge to Michigan. The border guards on the American side were, fortunately, in a rush, so they asked the same set of citizenship questions as the Canadians did and sent us on our way. There would be no cavity checks that night. For the rest of the ride home we didn’t say much, other than review what we had learned: Canada would take us in if need be, even if we had to endure their Canadian sense of humour.
A fair deal, all around.
In February, my birthday was the 279th date called for the draft lottery, and the year after that it was #115. Both were beyond the cutoff number. I was classified 4-F on my draft card and did not have to learn French, the metric system, or how to soak my fries in cheese curd.
I would remain fond of Canada for a very long time.
Two Dates
THERE WAS LINDA LIMATTA and her sister, Sue, and Mary Powers, Marcia Nastle, and Luanne Turner, too. There was Barb Gilliam, Lisa Dean, Debbie Johnson—it’s all true. Denise Hopkins, Cheryl Hopkins, Karen Hopkins, any Hopkins would do! There was Kathy Minto and Kathy Collins, Kathy Root, and Cathy O’Rourke—yes, if her name was Kathy, that just might do. There was Mary Sue Johnson, Mary Jo Madore, Mary Sue Rauschl, and Maribeth Beach. Jill Williams, Diane Peter, Lora Hitchcock, Wendy Carrell, Jeanie Malin, Madeline Peroni, Louise Prine, Suzanne Flynn, and Susie Hicks—and there wasn’t one of them, not a single one of them, that I had the courage to walk up to and simply ask if they’d like to go out to a movie with me on Friday night.
Well, there was Susie Hicks. I was walking down the hall with her between fifth and sixth hour, on our way to student council class. In my last year of high school I ran for student council. I won on a platform of promising to eliminate the homecoming queen contest. This immediately had me crossed off the list of every pretty girl in the school. But I didn’t care; I never stood a chance with them anyway.
Susie Hicks was the one exception. She was the vice president of her class, served on student council with me, sang in the high school musical, and was also a jock. She always laughed at my jokes and I, of course, somehow misconstrued that as her giving some thought to me as possible boyfriend material. I clearly didn’t understand that just because a girl likes you, it doesn’t mean