On our bus trip back to Canada from Aunt Rose’s in Herkimer, New York, border agents asked us about any undeclared purchases. I feared they would confiscate the field jacket cousin Pauly, an ex-Marine, bought for me at a military surplus. They really grilled Aunt Celestina. “You Mexican?” they asked her. “Sicilian,” she said. One axe-faced agent inspected her pretty green dress. “I sew myself,” Aunt Celestina explained. Finding no labels, the agent grunted, “Nice job.” They finally released us, but held back the hippie couple from Syracuse, who’d been sitting behind us since Utica, talking quietly about the war.
Salvatore Difalco writes from Toronto Canada.