[Leica] The Adventures of Eric the Red, part 4

[Martin Howard <howard.390@osu.edu>]

Being well informed of my impending trip, Chris presented me with a travel
kit.  It consisted, appropriately enough, of an old Absolut Vodka box
filled with various useful bits and pieces.  A torch, a few old rags, a
screwdriver, some Chinese flu-medication (which Chris carefully explained
to me incase the US customs officers took an interest in the strange pills
packed in wrappers scribbled only in Chinese pictograms), some tea bags,
and a bar of chocolate.  The chocolate, he explained, had a very special
purpose.  It was for major disasters.  If I ever found myself beside the
road in the middle of nowhere with a broken down car, the first thing I
should do is eat the chocolate.
   "You panic much less with food in your stomach," he reassured me.

That evening, we parked the Lincoln in Tom's underground garage.  He rents
two parking spaces, not because he has two cars, but so that he can park
the Chrysler ascew, without having to conform to the white lines that
someone else has decided should govern the placement of vehicles.  For this
evening, the Chrysler was in one lot, and the Lincoln next to it.  The
Chrysler, which had looked so massive and enormous on our first encounter
last November, was dwarfed by the Lincoln, in every dimension, and the
Toyota Corolla on the other side looked like something manufactured by
Corgi or Matchbox.  Tuulikki came down to take a look at it and burst out
in laughter, for a minute forgetting her Finnish stoicism.

On the night before my departure, Tom was as enthusiastic as ever, while
Tuulikki was painting nightmare scenarios of how I'd be standing at the
side of the road, in the middle of the night, miles from anywhere, with a
gigantic ocean-liner of a car that refused to move.  She was probably just
preparing me mentally for the worst, but somehow I felt much better
listening to Tom's fancies of how the flanks of the car begged for flames
to be painted on them, although our tastes in decoration differ quite
drastically on that point.  Somewhere among these two discussions, the
question of a name was raised.  It was clear that this was a car that
begged for a name, but what name could do it justice?

I think Tom had the winning entry.
   "Eric the Red, discoverer of America," he said quite plainly.  It was
brilliant.  Eric the Red.
   "I could nickname him 'Big Red'," I chimed in with glee.
   "Or you could call it a longboat," sighed Tuulikki, who by this time had
resigned herself to the idea that this poor, feeble-minded 30-something
obviously had no clue what he was getting into.
   "In a Longboat Across America," Tom announced, saying it like a title.
He was paying no attention to Tuulikki's attempts to knock some sanity back
into me again.  I loved it.  Eric the Red, the Longboat.  And so he was
named.

Now, a critical part of the circumstances surrounding this trip is that I
had already booked tickets to go to Sweden on the morning of Thursday the
17th of August.  They were cheap tickets, which means that they are not
refundable other than with a doctor's certificate signed by the Surgeon
General, stating that you're suffering from a life-threatening, airborne,
infectious disease, that has the potential of getting the airline sued if
you're taken on as a passenger.  So, I pretty much had to be in Columbus by
early evening on Wednesday the 16th, since I needed time to wash all my
clothes (I would have been on the road for three weeks by then), pack, and
get my stuff ready for the trip to Sweden.  It was noon on Saturday when I
packed Eric with my bags and hugged Tom and Tuulikki goodbye.  So, I had
2,700 miles to drive in an, essentially, unknown car over the next 101
hours, which would get me in Columbus by 5pm on Wednesday.  If you do the
maths, you'll learn that you need to be doing just over 26 mph for each of
those 101 hours to make the trip in time.  Denial can be a powerful force.

It was a glorious day.  I set off for the Canadian-US border, driving in
the sunshine, a smile on my lips, and one of Vancouver's rock stations
bubbling out from the quadraphonic stereo speaker system.  A few days
earlier, Tom had discovered that you could push one of the radio's knobs in
and turn it and had managed to find a sweet spot where you were completely
surrounded by music.  It seemed to drift just slightly as the electronics
heated up, so my head was suspended in music that was slowly phase-shifting
as it played.  This suited me just fine, since there was a pretty long
queue at the border, so I sat there listening to classic rock from Pink
Floyd, The Eagles, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and others as the long line of cars
inched forward to the inspection point.

I'd been through this border a number of times before.  When you travel
north, the Canadian immigrations and customs officers are friendly, polite,
and at least appear to take the view that you're not a drug-smuggling
terrorist until they get indications of otherwise.  Their US brethren have
a slightly different approach.  From my two previous encounters, I'd got
the impression that you were guilty until all your paperwork and the story
you told proved otherwise.  Being friendly was clearly not part of their
job description.  Still, I knew I had all the paperwork I could possibly
need, both for myself and for Eric, so I wasn't too worried.

We pulled up to the booth.  The INS officer took one look at my passport,
the IAP-66 and I-94 forms and handed them back to me.
   "Did you buy the car in Canada?" he asked.
   "Yes, I have the bill of sales and all the documentation here.  Do you
wish to see it?"
   "Pull over to the side and enter the Customs Office door on the left."
I did as instructed.  Once inside, I was met by an officer in his early 30s
who took a look at all my paperwork.
   "How old is the car?" he asked.
   I told him the year of manufacture.  He pulled out a gigantic file
binder and started flipping through it.  His brow furrowed as he read two
lines.  Apparently, there are two age limits for importing cars into the
US.  The first is at 21 years.  If the car is younger than this, then the
Department of Transport needs some kind of paper.  Since this didn't apply
to my 23 year old Lincoln, there was nothing to worry about.  The other
limit is at 25 years old.  Cars younger than this must have a piece of
paper from the manufacturer, stating that they fulfil the US Federal
Emissions Regulations.  This, apparently, was not among the vast number of
papers which I had presented to him.
   "Let's step out and take a look at the vehicle," he suggested.  We went
out, I popped the hood and he looked around.
   "I can't find any sticker stating that it fulfills the emissions
regulations."
We went back inside.  He pulled out another, even more gigantic ring binder
and started flipping through it.  During this process, he explained to me
that what I would have to do is write to Ford and get the required piece of
paper, then drive to the border and re-enter the US, legally importing the
car.  I would be able to drive it in the US on my ten day temporary permit,
but I wouldn't be able to title or register the car in Ohio until I'd done
this.

I explained that that was probably going to be impossible.  I was leaving
for Sweden the day after I returned to Ohio, and the temporary permit would
expire while I was in Sweden, meaning that I would not be able to drive the
car to the border or back again.  At least, not legally.  He found the
passage he was looking for and confirmed: yep, the requirement was for all
cars less than 25 years of age.  Mine was 23.
   "How much did you pay for the car?"  I showed him the bill of sale,
which was made out for C$500.  Hey, what they don't know, doesn't hurt
them, right?
   "Let me talk to my boss," he said, closed the ring binder with a thud
and walked off.

I was left to ponder my options.  The most realistic one appeared to be to
turn around, drive the car back to Tom and Tuulikki, and then take the bus
from Vancouver to Seattle and fly back from Seattle to Columbus.  The only
problem was having to face Tuulikki with the prospect of storing the car in
their garage.  She had been quite adamant that the car be *removed* from
their property.  In particular, she had been worried at one point that Tom
would offer to keep the Lincoln and I give me the Chrysler in exchange,
should I find the Lincoln to be a bit "too much".  Privately, I suspect she
was really worried that Tom had fallen in love with the size of the Lincoln
and wouldn't want to see it go.  In any case, it was painfully clear to me
that Tuulikki did not want to see this particular car on the Canadian side
of the border ever again.


- -- 
Martin Howard                     | "I am Pentium of Borg.  Division is
Visiting Scholar, CSEL, OSU       | futile.  You will be approximated."
email: howard.390@osu.edu         |                            -- Unknown
www: http://mvhoward.i.am/        +---------------------------------------