Having the (occasionally) dubious pleasure of crossing back and forth from Washington State to B.C. over the past 40+ years, there have been times when Border Officials on both sides seemed to take inordinate pleasure in their questioning.
In the 60’s, crossing into Canada was a snap for the most part with officers being quite pleasant (except for the poor ‘hippie’ getting his VW van torn apart in a search for the ‘lid’ that had to be there). I’m sure they realized that the majority of us who were obviously young sailors from NAS Whidbey in desperate hormonal need of female contact were making the “speed run to 'couver” for innocent purposes. They’d usually say “Enjoy yourself -drive safe”. Getting back into the States was where the problems usually started.
U.S. Border officials always appeared (to me, anyway) to be ex-military/ex-police and seemed to take some delight in questioning unlucky ‘squids’.
Q: “Why did you want to leave the U.S. ?”
A: “Uh…to go to hear some music in Vancouver.”
Q: “Why would you drive to Vancouver to hear music ?”
A: " Uh… that’s where the music is ?"
Q: " It’s 3:30 AM, why are you crossing so late ?
A: " Uh… the club just closed and I gotta be back on base by 8:00."
Q: “Your License is from Georgia, what are you doing driving in Washington ?”
A: “I am from Georgia but I’m in the Navy…”
Q: “Can you prove that ?”
A: " Uh… well, here’s my ID card ."
Pause for official scrutiny of ID card and comparison of ‘Boot-camp’ photograph of pasty-faced recruit with shaved head to current manly sailor visage.
Q: " This doesn’t look like you - where did you get this ID card ?"
Multiply this sad scenario by the four other sailors in various states of beer/music induced stupor in the car and you can draw you own conclusions as to why some guys got put on report for missing muster.:smack: