James and Cloyce

I'm going to try to get this story right. I'll just ask all of you out there to remember that stories and memories can get garbled over time.

Me Great Grandpa James wasn't a drinker. Yet one day he found himself with a jug of whiskey; I just don't recall how. But as he tooled along in his horse drawn wagon headed for Church one Sunday (this would have been in early 1900s Illinois) he noticed the town drunk ambling towards him. I'll call the guy Cloyce just to give him a name.

Anyway, me great grandfather could tell that Cloyce was ailing. So he pulled up and asked what was wrong. He was recovering from a drunk, Cloyce explained, and that maybe a little hair of the dog would help. Yet he didn't know where he might find any that morning, a fine Sunday morning as it were. James simply gave him the whiskey he had and went about his business.

He ran into Cloyce a few days later and asked how the whiskey was. "Just fine, sir, just fine," Cloyce answered. "Any worse and I couldn't have drunk it, and any better and you wouldn't have given it to me." 

As an aside, me Great Grandpa later found out that Cloyce had been going all over town bragging that he had gotten a drink from old Jim Cosgriff, and on a Sunday morning no less. But great Grandpa James didn't mind such tales making the rounds.

Taking a bottle to Canada

So, last night was the season ending banquet of the Windsor (Ontario) Granite League. As each club member was expected to bring a door prize worth approximately 20 bucks, I ran into the duty free store on the US side of the border on my way over, to purchase such an item.

Then I proceed to Canada. Now, other than that time I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, when for the first time I was stopped for inspection as I entered that great northern nation, I've had no trouble being allowed entrance to that country. Still, to forestall an issue, I determined to be faithfully honest to the Canadian officials as I crossed into their land.

"Anything coming into Canada which will stay in Canada?" the border guard asked as he took my identification.

"Well,' I answered honestly. 'I bought a bottle of whiskey at the duty free shop, to be given as a door prize."

"What size is it?" the guard queried.

"1.14 litres," I answered, being clear to use the Canadian inflection. But I thought, ah man, he's going to make me pay duty on it.

"What did you pay?" he asks. "Nineteen U.S.," I answer, thinking, you're kidding, you're going to make me pay duty on this?

Next he says, "What brand is it?"

I'm sure by now that he's going to make me pay the duty, and I'm thinking, Really? On a barely over a litre bottle? But I answer rightfully, "Forty Creek". It's a brand popular in Canada, which I knew, though I've yet to try it. But what can it matter? This guy's going to pull me over to pay the duty.

Instead, he begins to nod his head and then smile, as he hands me back my ID. "Good choice", he says. "Have a good time."

I hope whomever chose that bottle as his prize appreciates my anxiety.