The World's Briefest Trip Abroad

Paul and Sylvia Nadeau are two of our best friends. We met while Paul and I were still in the Army Reserve and both are from Aroostook County (The County to Mainers). For a number of years, as part of our reserve duties, Paul and I were required to travel to The County to inspect military skills classes being held at the National Guard armories there. Our unit was a school with classes being taught at local centers, Paul and I acting as school principals. It was during one of these trips that we took the shortest trip on record into Canada.
Aroostook County occupies about the northern third of Maine and is inhabited by about 10% of the state’s population. It consists of many heavily forested acres and the big sky of farm land. Potatoes are the largest crop grown. The southern half is made up of mainly of folks tracing their ancestry to the British Isles, while the northern half, predominantly the St. John River valley (The Valley) is comprised of people descended from the early French settlers, most of whom still speak French, and English with a delightful accent: French with a hint of Celtic lilt. Sandwiched in between is a small colony of Swedes in the towns of Stockholm, New Sweden and Westmanland.
The greatest people in Maine live there. They are good humored, and a person’s intelligence is measured not by college credits but by common sense. Our Senator Susan Collins, who operates with such an intelligence not common in Washington, is herself a County girl.
During the time I was in State servitude, I would travel to The County with the Maine State Police, another of my favorite group of folks, where we would conduct school bus driver training. It was not uncommon to hear drivers discussing the merits of vehicles in French. We would know what they were talking about because the words, “automatic transmission” and “air brakes,” could be heard from time to time. At one point, one of my trooper colleagues was asked if he could speak French. To his negative reply, he was asked, “Then how does it feel to be dumber than a Frenchman.” Great folks these.
Although I don’t miss working for the state, I miss the great people I had the privilege to hang out with. Take for example, Jim Grandmaison, of the Ft. Kent School District. His name translates to “Big House,” but his decidedly French speaking secretary loved it when I called asking either for Mr. Big House or Senor Casa Grande. He always claimed that to come south, he parked his car, an alleged ’54 Studebaker in Medway (look that up on the map) where he would pick it up after a dog sled run south.
But I digress. Paul and I had to inspect the classes held there, so we would drive north on Friday, stay at the farm with Virgil and Althea, Sylvia's father and stepmother, and Saturday morning would find us in one of the armories. We tried to get done by noon to allow time for some trout fishing or bird hunting for Saturday supper as the seasons allowed.
Now, our pride was that we held the only classes in basic artillery skills, and nuclear, biological and chemical defense in the entire US Army that were held in French; that being with the battery in Ft. Kent.
One year, long before 9/11 as we were up there, the price of gasoline was significantly lower in Canada than the US, and with the armory literally a snowball’s throw from the border, we crossed over the bridge, dressed in our US Army uniforms, asked the friendly Canadian border agent for the location of the nearest gas station, and ten minutes later pulled up at the US Immigration Service gate to come back in. The guard looked at us, two uniformed commissioned officers, and asked how long we had been in Canada. Paul looked at his watch and said with a big smile, “Ten minutes.” “What are you bringing back?” “A tank of gas.” With a laugh and shake of his head he waved us through.
Life was a little simpler then.