The restaurant is on the top of this taller building.

So we leave the restaurant, get in the car, and head across the bridge into Canada.  At the Border stop, I was asked the normal things like "Do you have anything to declare?"  I answered that question with the words I would regret.  I said "the only things I have is a couple of new cameras in the trunk because I'm a photographer.  At that point, I was told to pull over for a search.  I need to stop here and tell you that I was driving my mothers car.  At this time, my car was crap and I didn't trust it to make a long trip.  So they start searching.  A woman guard opened the glove compartment door, and out onto the fell my mom's 380 pistol.  That was it.  I was told to get out of the car and I was handcuffed. I tried to tell them that I had no idea that the gun was in the car, but they didn't care.  I was placed in a vehicle and taken to jail.  This was about 3 pm. My girlfriend was let go, but now she has no idea where to go, if she has to stay overnight somewhere, and when and how will I be released. She had very little money with her and as I sat in jail, I wondered what she was going to do.

I was taken to a holding cell which was in the basement of the jail building.  There was nothing in there but a concrete bench and a large spotlight high up on the wall.  It was clean, but cold.  Unlike this photo, I was not placed in a jail suit, yet. I was the only one there.... at first.  But as the night wore on, two things happened: 1... I was freezing, so I stood on the concrete bench with my back to the light trying to keep warm.  2.... People started to arrive.  Some were like me.  They too had been caught with guns in their cars, while others were picked up for being drunk.  Needless to say, I was up all night long with my back against that light, waiting to see what would happen next.

The next morning, we were all chained together and instructed to follow a guard.  He led us through a dark tunnel under the street. We  climbed some steps and found ourselves in another building. Turned out to be another holding facility where large vehicles were kept.  We were all loaded up into this large windowless truck, except for a tiny window in the drivers area.  We drove what seemed for miles and miles, and finally we arrived....

It was an honest to God prison!   We all walked in to another large holding cell.  Unlike the last one, this one had a toilet.  It was breakfast time now and the guard started pushing trays of food through the slit in the bars, and as I was starving, not eating anything since noon the day before, I was about to dig in when.... it happened.  The toilet overflowed.  This cell had a "lip" about 6 inches high around its base,  which meant the water couldn't get out.  Slowly it started filling up and when the toilet paper floated by, I lost my appetite.

Others who had been there before me started having their names called out.  I watched as each one walked to a desk in the middle of the room, where a guard signed some papers and then handed the inmate his prison clothes.  He was then led up a stairway and through a door where all the "big boy" cells were located. "Oh shit" I thought.  If I go through those doors no one will find me for weeks, maybe months.  After about 20 minutes, with my shoes wet, my name was called.  I walked up to the desk and waited to be handed my clothes. And wouldn't you know it..... I faintly heard my name called from a different direction.  I turned around to see a guard walking towards me.  He says something to the other guard and then leads me down the hallway from which he came.  I look way down the hall and see my girlfriend standing on the other side of a metal door. She had managed to get the money to bail me out!  But that's a story unto itself.....

You see, my girlfriends father was Senior Vice President of the Columbia Gas Corporation. He was a great guy. But like most people, I managed to make him really mad at me.  As a photographer, I took all sorts of photos, but mostly news photos.  I like to do different photography when I had a chance.  So one day my girlfriend invited me to her house. It was huge and beautiful of course.  But the "sun room" lets call it was even more so. There were about 6 French doors all along one wall that allowed the light in. And on the floor they had this very beautiful large patterned carpet. Something like you might see at the Greenbrier.  I had an idea:  I would have my girlfriend strip naked, lay on that carpet facing the doors.  I would shoot the picture from behind.  This would give me a silhouette of her in black, while the rest of the room would be properly exposed.  The picture turned out beautifully.  Again, all you could see of her was her shape against the light and nothing more.  She had told me how liberal her parents were, and how they loved good paintings and good photography.  So I made a large print and mounted it.  Then about a week later I was back at the house where I placed the photo on their mantle. When they walked into the room and saw the photo, you could hear a pin drop.

The above is a simple graphic just so you can visualize the photo, which was lost decades ago.  You could see no detail in my girlfriends body, just the shape. But it turned out that her parents weren't nearly as liberal as she thought they were, at least when it came to their daughter.  These were cultured people, who didn't show emotions in public. So what they DID do, is take their daughter into another room and told her to tell me to get out and never come back. Hahaha... like, how many times have I heard THAT before?  It was at this point that the daughter got mad and moved-in with me.  Great.  So that's where we pick up my story..... My girlfriend had little money with her, so she had no choice but to call her father to ask for $500 to bail me out.  Can you imagine the look on his face?  I'm surprised that he didn't say "Forget it!  I'll send you enough money to get back to WV!".  But he didn't. He wired money and that's when I heard my named called. She had come to rescue me, and the following day we went to court....

As I was  the first arrested that day, I was the first up in front of the judge.  But before that, I was given a public defender whom I told my tale of woe.   He'd heard it all before and advised me of what I should do.  Canada is VERY serious about guns,  and it wasn't looking good for me.   If I pled guilty, I could get 10 years. If I pled innocent, I would have to come back for a trial and maybe lose. This I didn't want to do.  So I decided to take my chances. The judge could have been a cartoon.  He was  a large old man that had a face like an English Bulldog.  His jowls hung down on both sides of his cheeks, and he never looked up over his glasses.

Not the actual guy, but pretty close.

I'm on the front row of the court, fairly close to the courts stenographer. She's slightly over middle age and had a friendly face, unlike the judge.  But the judge hadn't arrived yet, so it was me and her, some court officials, and the gang sitting behind me whom I had spent the night locked-up with.  I don't know who started the conversation first. Probably me. But whoever it was me and the stenographer started talking.  At one point she said "You have a lovely accent". GOT HER!  Older women love me, so now all I have to do is turn on the charm and keep it up.  The really funny thing is that I don't sound like the typical West Virginian, so I'm not sure what accent she heard. Finally the judge arrived and we started.  He asked me a simple question: "Guilty or innocent"?  By then I had it all planned out: "Guilty with an explanation your honor".  He asked me to go on.  I told him how I was driving my mothers car and she was a nurse that worked nights and that's why the gun was in the car.  "Being from WV, it's a pretty standard thing to do" I told him.  I also said that I didn't know the gun was in the car and I was guilty for not checking first. I see the stenographer walk over to him and whisper something to him.  He shuffled some papers and said "I find you guilty of bringing an unregistered firearm into the country. The fine is $500 and your weapon will be confiscated. Case dismissed". And that was it!  Thank goodness my girlfriends father had sent her $1,200!  I paid the fine and we got to hell out of Dodge.  Well... almost.  Getting by the Canadian border guard was easy, but the American border guard?  He treated me like a criminal!  Made me get out of the car and took me to a little room where he spent the next 5  minutes checking every authority in the United States!  The FBI, the CIA, everyone!  He was real bastard too.  Had that nasty attitude that you just don't ever want to have to deal with.  Finally he let us go, and we kept going and going and going... never looking back. THE END

See the next Chapter of my life here:


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