There's No Place Like It... Part 3

About half an hour from the Canadian border, a look of anxiety crossed my brother's countenance.  His eyes had a pinched look as if he was concentrating too hard on book six inches in front of his face.  There is a worry line that runs vertically near his left eyebrow.  I would know; I've got it too.

"What's the problem, Hermano? (that's Spanish for 'brother' and probably one of seven words I can still remember that can be used appropriately in regular human conversation)"

His hands gripped the black leather of the steering wheel, knuckles beginning to push all the blood out from his hands.  "I'm worried that I'm going to be arrested at the border."

Of all the responses I was going to get, this would have been somewhere on the list between, 'I'm joining the ELCA' and 'I'm pregnant.' 

"Come again," I said, laughing a little because certainly he was joking.  Certainly.

"No, really, I'm afraid that when I show my passport at the border, the Minnesota Border Patrol, will refuse me entry into Canada.  A few months ago I was driving down the road, minding my own business (aren't we always when the red and blue lights start flashing?) when this cop pulls me over.  I remember clearly because I wasn't speeding, well, not that much.  He walks up to my window and I hand over my license and registration.  'Do you know what the problem is?' he says in this deep voice as if somehow I'm going to be scared."

"Were you?" I interjected, because I always get scared that someone will have a vendetta against me and plant some sort of illegal substance in my car that I haven't noticed, like a hundred pound bag of drugs or a dead body, and the cops will take me off in handcuffs and I won't be able to be a pastor anymore. 

Ryan kind of ignored the question.  It's like asking Superman if he's afraid of heights.  "Supposedly my tags were out of date - expired.  The policeman had to take a few moments out of his hectic day catching thieves, drug lords and murderers to make sure that I didn't get away with having expired tags on my 2006 Pacifica that for some reason the insurance company keeps calling a minivan.  It's not a minivan."  My brother has a phobia, I think, of minivans because of all the time we spent in my parents 1988 Ford.  My dad drove that thing for about 200,000 miles until rust had eaten away all the panels and the engine sounded like it ran on skinned cats instead of gasoline.

"The copper told me that I would be getting a warning, oooooh," he made a gesture with his fingers in the air wiggling them back and forth, "which I was happy about, mind you.  He sent me on my merry way telling me to get straight home and fix the priorities in my life.  Change the tags.  It was the only time in my life that I wished I were the pope so I could tell him that he should be careful because I have the power over who gets in and who doesn't."  I nodded.  I've had that feeling before.

"Anyway, I forgot about the warning, because it's a warning, right?  It's like a yellow traffic light.  It doesn't really mean anything.  But a few weeks ago I stumbled across the warning piece of paper and the copper pulled a fast one on me.  It wasn't a warning, it was a real ticket and I had had thirty days to pay the fine or show up in court.  I didn't pay the fine because I thought it was a yellow light and the court day was almost the day I found the ticket."  Ryan went on to tell me the rigamarole he went through where eventually, even the prosecuting attorney, who was probably bored to tears with prosecuting hardened 'criminals' like my car tag avoiding brother, told my brother to 'Shut up,' and he would have the ticket wiped because Ryan did not have a record (as far as I know.  but he does live in Nebraska).

"I saw the secretary erasing the ticket from the court docket, but I don't know for sure.  I didn't pay the fine and if the lawyer didn't really do what he said, I might be..."

Ryan didn't say what his biggest fear was.  It wasn't spending a night in jail or paying an exorbitant fine - LCMS pastors make a lot of money:  a lot - ...

It was that he didn't want to miss out on the weekly trip to Canada.  More than any other family member, my brother loved this annual adventure.  When we were growing up, we used to pretend that the inside of our house was Lac de Mille Lacs and we would pretend we had fishing poles catching fish (1980's ceramic animals or Billy the Bass of singing infamy).  As we fished we made up stories and reminisced old ones from what we could remember from our early childhood years.  We talked about the crispness of the air, the smell of pine trees in everything, the feel of rain pelting our faces as we jumped three foot waves in the boats.  That's part of the Canadian memories we carry around inside of our heads. 

The Canada trip was not just about fishing or spending time together, but it was more about reeling in the years sharing time with family, putting down the screens and mobile devices and listening to the loons proclaim that God's beauty is still vibrantly alive.  All those years we've been going to Canada (we started going in 1978) we've stockpiled family moments that keep us going back and those family moments then buoy the rest of the year, even when we are fearing the threat of being arrested.

Ryan swallowed hard as the border security checked our passports and asked us questions.  No, we didn't have any guns, no tobacco, no live bait, no dirt.  One year when we went up, the BS asked me what I did for a living.  I told him I was a pastor.  He didn't know what that was but he let us go anyway. 

We did have to stop, though.  We had an extra bottle of whiskey.  Had to pay a little extra for that one so that we wouldn't be arrested.

After clearing customs, we drove the rest of the way to Thunder Bay, only about a forty-five minute drive.  We didn't have a clear set of directions to get to the hotel and after a few fumbling attempts, we finally spotted the Days Inn, located my dad's fishing boat and parked.  As we walked inside, I had another sense of knee bucking surreality.  Had it been so long since I'd seen my family?  How would they sound?  What would they look like?  They'd be happy to see me, but would there be awkwardness?

Then the doors of the elevator opened and after two and a half years, my dad walked out of the room, arms extended, whiskey and water in one hand, the other waiting for a hug.  His smile was as big as Lake Superior and the sound of his voice like a Pavaratti aria.  "Frederick."  That's what he calls me.  Nobody knows why, not even Dad.  He gave each one of his kids and grandkids a nickname, but mine was 'Frederick.'  He wrapped me up in his arms careful not to baptize me with Black Velvet and water and any fear of awkwardness was squished out.

Then came Danielle, my sister, or (she'll probably kill me for this) Doo Doo.  When she saw me it was as if her face melted.  I don't know how to describe it any different than that; her eyes melted instantly to tears and she hugged me.  It was a really cool experience to have your family press thirty months of missed hugs into one.  Then Mom.  The re-meeting was all over quickly, but life had been pressed back to normality.  At that point, I was not forty years old, but ten.  Mom and Dad had taken us on the yearly Canadian adventure.  All things were normal.

Except, that is, my dad decided to sleep in the pickup truck because he didn't want anyone stealing his boat.