Crossing international borders is always fraught with a little nervousness. The Border Services answer to no one and they can be flinty eyed and armed. In 1984 I couldn't find any work at home. I mean any work. After knocking on doors all around town, I decided to head to California, so I had lots of opportunity to cross the 49th parallel and into the US. An illegal alien. Of this planet but an alien nonetheless.
At that time, the San Francisco Bay area was booming. Silicon Valley was just being built and that high tech money was stoking a building boom that seemed endless. Lots of Canadians were going to work in California, as well as workers from Washington, Oregon, Nevada and Arizona. Most Canadian construction workers did not have a "Green Card" or residency permit of any sort. The guys I knew just "cleared out" of their International Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners local in Canada and cleared into the Redwood City local or some other. When asked for their Social Security number, they just gave their Canadian SIN. It had the same number of digits as the US but broken into 3-3-3 digits instead of the American 3-2-4.
By a stroke of luck, I had an American SS number. When I was still in high school and looking for summer work in 1963, I was hired on by the Great Northern Railway because my best friend's dad was Freight Agent in Vancouver and because I could type. The GNR was an American railroad and in fact was the first railroad to cross the continent to the Pacific. It was built by James Hill, a Canadian, who was supposed to have built the CPR but was edged out by John A. MacDonald in favour of an American builder. He was so ticked that he decided to build his own railway in the US and beat the CPR to the Pacific.
All of us Canucks had to get an American number in the event that we transferred into the States to work on the railway. When the time came for me to go to California, although I didn't have a green card, I had a legitimate Social Security number. As soon as I cleared into the Redwood City local, I was put to work. The first place was a large tract housing site right on the Bay - Pelican Cove Estates. I lived in my sister Tutta's motorhome to begin with and on long weekends I would head back up to Canada to see Betty and the kids.
My first trip home became a border problem. I hadn't really thought the whole thing through so I bought a return ticket to Vancouver from San Francisco. When it was time to return, the American customs inspection was in Vancouver prior to boarding the plane. The first question to be asked was why I had a return ticket. Was I working in the US? After a half hour of questioning in the back room I was refused entry and sent away. My name was entered in the computer but in those days the machines weren't so interconnected as they are today. Dad was living in New Westminster so I called him up and he then drove me across the border to Seattle. In those days we just needed to show some photo id to get across in a car. I was able to change my ticket in Seattle and fly back to San Francisco. But my name was in the computer.
On my next visit home, I flew San Francisco - Seattle, planning to hitch to Vancouver. I checked out the car rental lineup and overheard an older couple renting a car to Vancouver. As it was getting dark, I volunteered to drive if they would take me along and that's how it worked out. Back across the 49th. Returning to the US, I was delivering a 4x4 Dodge Power Wagon truck from Howard and Satu to nephew Steve. The truck did really look kind of hippyish and I was bearded and wearing a Mackinaw. As bad luck would have it, the nuclear submarine base in Bangor, Washington was waiting for the "White Train" which delivered nuclear warheads. The border guards were expecting protesters from Canada and there I was. This was another case of stepping into the back room and being questioned. I thought that my name would show up in the computer from the previous crossing attempt but as it didn't come up, I was grudgingly allowed to proceed.
At that time I was living in a trailer on a co-worker's property in the little coastal town of Pacifica. I had literally just come in the door after the 20 hour drive from the border when there was a thumping at the door followed by "Open up, Police". I thought that this was it and I would be deported. As it happened the police were looking for an escapee from a detention centre nearby who had jumped over the wall with no clothes and every property was being searched to see if he had come by for clothes. Nobody was interested in me.
Many more border crossings have come and gone since then. None have proved difficult but have always been with a heightened level of nervousness. Whether it's the fear of being turned back when you really need to go or something else, I don't know. Of course, in this time of terrorist threats everybody is taking security seriously. You can count on more flinty eyed looks from the Border Services.
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