Short Stories

Story #22 "Still a Proud American"

I was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and have lived in the USA since 1966 as a Permanent Resident. I joke my parents sent me over The Niagara Falls in a barrel and I was raised by wolves in upstate NY. It's a metaphor to my childhood. I will touch on my childhood often.

You see my Dad played in the NHL when there were just 6 teams and was the 1st Player to have a contract in The AHL. Growing up in Hershey, PA was a fortunate gift.

In 2008 I became a U.S. Citizen and there were two of us hockey players in the swearing in ceremony. 2008 was a crazy time to do this as I look back. Obama created a frenzy of people to become citizens to vote. Literally a one day event turned into three due to the overwhelming demand.

I became a citizen because of 9/11. After that event I felt the country I grew up in needed me. I wanted to be armed and dropped off over there so I could kick some ass. I was fired up and I am still fired up over ISIS.

Back to the process of Citizenship because it's a really funny story.

Growing up in Hershey I went through one of the best public school systems in the USA. I received a very good education and so did all my friends in Hershey. It's obvious with so many successful colleagues. I thank all my Teachers and Well Done Trojans.

For 4 months I studied for the Citizen Test even though I'd lived here and went through K-12 in the USA. My Wife made flash cards for me and drilled me over and over. I was an expert in this subject by the time of my test.

It was total Chaos at the Fairfax, VA Immigration office. Everyone wanted to be a Citizen because of Obama. I Wish he knew Economics half as well as me.

I finally made it into the examination office. I was nervous. The GOV official asked me about my past. It was a couple minutes at best. And included were the official questions they asked me. 1. How many stripes are on the flag? 2. Could I write "in English" I like my car. No kidding these were the only questions or testing I received after 4 months of flash cards. Wow !! I was blown away.

So I squeaked through the testing and headed back down to the long lines of applicants. I was one of two Caucasians out of 600. The other guy played for The Washington Capitals. Yea I knew him from hockey... Imagine that?

We ran out of time that day so I had to come back twice. Yes twice because the Immigration office was over run.

On day 3 they called my name. I went up to a window. They asked for my Green Card. I gave it to the official and he dropped it into an old Kleenex box. I'm not kidding. So official right?

Now we were all herded into an auditorium for the Ceremony. We were shown a short video which was touching and afterwards another official, someone even more important, asked us to stand up from front to back, one at a time and state where you were from. Simple enough. No not for this crowd.

It was a wave of chaos. People jumping up out of sync yelling "Iraq", "Iran" "Afghanistan", etc, etc...

I was 2/3 the way back and looked at my Caucasian buddy from The Capitals and laughed. He laughed. The wave is out of control and its heading right for me.

When it gets to me I stand up and shout "Canada !!"

Everyone in the auditorium, all 600 people, immediately look back at me with a puzzled look like "is that a different Country" Hahahahahahhaha.

I do have some "buyers remorse" of doing this just from some of the screwed up things I've seen in the past 6 years.

We still have our "freedom of speech" right?