At the conclusion of the Canadian National Exhibition, we at North American Midway pack up our chattels and make our way for the US border to Fairs in Lewiston, New York and Springfield, Mass. Alas, the end of our Canadian Tour.
In 2008, the day after Labour Day, I’m busy with tidying up some business affairs with the management of the CNE and packing up my office. It turns out we are a bit short on drivers and they ask if I could take a load on a one and a half hour drive to Lewiston, which I agree to. To begin with I’m to take the Funnel Cake, but once I’m finished putting away the last of my office items things have changed and I’m now going to drive the Shoot Out the Star game.
I’m a bit tired but the trip goes fast and soon I’m at the Queenston-Lewiston Bridge in the commercial US Customs line. I arrive at the inspection station and the customs and immigration officer reviews our customs papers and asks us to pull over into the inspection area. In the inspection area we head into the customs building and wait forever for someone else to take a look at our papers and what we are bringing into the United States. After almost four hours, a new customs person comes out and says that they need a special Homeland Security inspector from Buffalo to come out in the morning to look at our load before we can leave.
So we get a hotel in Niagara Falls, New York and wake very early in the morning to again wait for the Special Inspector to arrive. Again we wait another three hours when the special Homeland Security inspector arrives and we lead him out to the truck and load. He pokes around the truck and trailer for a while and tells us we can head on our way. We go back inside to get our papers stamped and another customs inspector clears us to go and we ask why our load was detained. The Shoot Out the Star game involves machine guns that fire buckshot at a paper target and our “in-house” customs person put on the clearing papers that we were transporting “Machine Guns.” Homeland Security certainly does not like the words “Machine Guns” and that was what caused our delay.