The Slice: Truth north, strong and free

Today’s column is dedicated to those who say they will move to Canada if the election doesn’t turn out the way they want.

Recalling a minor border incident: Years ago, my wife and I were coming home after a trip to Nelson, B.C.

Along the way, I noticed a campaign sign on a stake protruding from a public trash barrel along the side of the road. I assumed this meant the Canadian election was over. But down in Spokane, our Election Day was still a few weeks off.

So I pulled over and put that sign in the back of our hatchback. I thought it would be mildly amusing to place it among a cluster of campaign signs in one of the places in Spokane thusly festooned.

But when we stopped at the border, the uniformed U.S. agent looked at the sign as if we were trying to enter this country with some serious contraband. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I could tell pretty quickly he was not thinking “Oh, what a grand sense of humor this gentleman has!”

Eventually, he waved us through. But not before an unspoken question hung heavy in the international air at that border crossing.

“Are you some sort of outside agitator?”

Border incident No. 2: Another time, we went up to Nelson to mail our Christmas cards. (This was back in the 1980s, when people still mailed Christmas cards.) We imagined friends and relatives around the United States would get a kick out of receiving holiday greetings mailed north of the border.

And because the filmed-in-Nelson Steve Martin movie “Roxanne” had not been out long, we somehow thought our cards’ recipients might recognize “Nelson” on the envelope and picture us abiding in a cool part of the world.

We could almost hear them saying “Just how far north are they?”

But then after the cards arrived at their various destinations we heard that they had a “Chicago” postmark. Apparently, at least at that time, mail from western Canada to the U.S. first went to Illinois.

Oh, well. At least they had Canadian stamps.

Warm-up question: What will be the essential difference between watching election returns on TV and watching the seventh game of the World Series?

Today’s Slice question: If you were going to move to Canada, where would you choose to settle?

(I recommend doing some research on what Canada requires of new residents before pulling up stakes here.)

Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Will you be satisfied with an electoral victory of any size or will you not be happy unless your candidate crushes the opposition?