Lemme see… Got up, walked, did laundry, packed, PICKED MY FIRST RIPE TOMATO (and ate it so, alas, no pic). Logged into work and did a few things. Went into full-tilt boogie PANIC mode trying to use the NEW TIMESHEET system. Uber-boss got me on the phone and talked me down off the ledge via shared desktop. Mouse arrived. We launched. Alas. The Ninja did not have the right “stuff” to play music from an iPhone. Fortunately that was figured out before we got to the Maple/Miller intersection. Which is a half mile from home. Back. Oh, you have one in Daisy? Okay, that means we don’t have to go inside the house. Aaaaaaannnnd again we are off!

Arrival at the moominbeach? 3:15 or so. Had fully planned on logging back into work and got toadily [ducking for cover] waylaid. By. The GG. Aunts, uncles, cuzzints of various removals or not, aaaaannnnd… Some stranded Canadians. On our beach. It was a woman with two school-age children. They were driving a jet-ski that had managed to suck a small rock in somehow. I am unclear about the details of where this happened or how they got to the moominbeach. But they were here and we offered what help we could. Which is hard to do in this day and age where every single blasted person is suspicious whether they are or not a terrorist or whatever. What happens if somebody finds out that we offered something (water, a bathroom, whine, whatever) to someone from that horrendously unfriendly country of Canada [huge sarcasm here]. The Piedies gave them some water. No one asked for a bathroom but we would certainly have allowed these “horrible aliens” access to one if they had needed one. Heck, the kids were swimming in our wonderful sandbar system, maybe they peed the water. If they did, I don’t care. We’ve all done that [and still do it]. There’s a lotta water out there.

This woman was stranded for way longer than she should have been. Her house (or cabin or whatever) is less than a mile from the Moominbeach but it is across the border. She called home for help and her family launched a boat to come over and rescue her. Alas. What was the US Coast Guard doing today? Harassing people. Mainly asking questions like, “Do you have a life jacket on board for every person?” or “Do you have your boat registration?” But. They were also nitpicking about the border. Which, if you are in a boat in the St. Marys River, is relatively indistinct. And so, when our stranded traveler’s rescue boat launched, it was stopped by our wondrous Coast Guard and turned back to Canada. Don’tcha know that the Canadians in the photoooo might be smuggling explosives in. Maybe they want to blow up the Sault Ste. Siberia Tower of History?

And so, now there are these [very nice] people stranded on our beach here in the United Snakes and their family (who live less than a mile away) cannot rescue her. What happens next? Does somebody [not me!] call the border patrol folks and and and what… Would there be some kind of big investigation of this woman and her kids? For what reason?

We have to ratchet down all of this security stuff. Today a nice American family [with some Canadian roots] met up with a nice Canadian family [with family in the US]. A Canadian family who apparently lives a similar life to the one that we live, with a beach and boats and yaknow, kids, etc. A Canadian family who happened to be in a difficult situation. It would be nice if we could ratchet down all of the damn god-forsaken security stuff so that some [goddamn] COMMON SENSE could be included. Like. These people are trying to rescue their family who are stranded at the Moominbeach (on the AMERICAN shore). We are on training exercises so we act like they are trying to run drugs or weapons or whatever over to KW on the Moominbeach [yeah, roight] so we are not going to let them cross over. Meanwhile, moom and kids are waiting here… … … Why could the coast guard not accompany the rescue boat over to the moominbeach and actually figure out what was going on. And provide some actual help…

Long story short: The Canadian family waited for our wondrous Coast Guard to leave the area and came over to our side and executed a successful rescue. I heard one of the guys who extricated the rock hand it to the male youngster and tell him to put it in his treasure chest. Terrorists? No way!

I do not know if I have the words here but fer kee-reist let’s stop harassing regular citizens unless there is a documented reason to. We have now had some storms move through and it is raining (thank you god, we need it). If that woman had been stranded in bad weather, I know that one of us would have gladly offered her shelter for the afternoon or evening or however long she needed it. We are neighbors and now friends, not aliens.

I felt like my tax dollars were wasted today. Our government nitpicked people’s boat credentials and “defended” the border at the potential expense of the lives of the folks who were stranded here on our beach. The coast guard could have accompanied the rescue boat to the Moominbeach and, if they had done that, they might have seen two families from different countries trying to work together to solve a problem and talking together as friends. If the USA and Canada cannot maintain a friendly border (like we used to do), I am not sure who can.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 1st, 2012 at 8:09 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.