Badges? We don't need no stinking Badges!

Here I am in Vermont and not three miles from the border that separates us from our strange neighbors to the North, when I see that Homeland Security, fearing that I may make a desperate run for the border after having failed to qualify for the “Cash for Clunkers” program, was doing their job and on the alert in this sleepy little border town. “Damn” I thought, “these guys will track you down everywhere”.

Unlike the border towns of Mexico, where a small but influential part of my misspent youth was indeed spent, Vermont border towns do not consist of a hundred bars, a dozen brothels, and thousands of street vendors just waiting to sell you everything from a taco that you will later regret, to a tattoo that you will later wonder where the hell it came from. Instead of Tequila and fireworks, you will find maple syrup and cheese. Although they are wonderful and friendly people, you might say that the residents here were “born to be mild”. One charming young lady we met on a Friday night was headed off to a Corn Maze, the living on the edge excitement of which most of us can only imagine.

Deterred by the presence of the J.B. Police, we turned back from the frontier and re-entered the safety and warmth of rural Vermont.