Already have a spot picked out, right on the ocean, a mere twenty minutes north of Calais, Maine. I know the neighbourhood well. Used to frequent the highways and byways of the Quoddy Bay area back when I toiled at the drydock. The bay was a thousand fishing boats, one RCMP patrol boat, and a US Coast Guard presence so slight you could go months without seeing any sign of it. The Canadian Border Patrol had a wee office on Deer Island, where it was not unusual to find a locked door and a sign advising you that they'd be back in fifteen minutes.
Life's been good here at Falling Downs, and it's sad to think of leaving, but the time may be nigh upon us. We're not getting any younger. I miss the taste of sea salt in the air. We enjoy good health, more or less, for now at least, although the twin spectres of creeping dementia and pending manganism haunt me daily.
The Farm Manager is up and down about my plan. Her main objection seems to be what are we gonna do for money. I did some research, and it turns out there's lots of jobs in the general area. Mostly "seafood processing" jobs. In fact, there's such a shortage of workers that one of the local companies had to dump tons of lobster at the landfill just because they couldn't find workers.
Dig a little deeper into this labour shortage, and a couple of things become apparent. First of all, the seafood industry on the east coast has, over the past ten years, become heavily dependant on "temporary foreign workers." That's because the locals balk at standing in a refrigerated building in rubber boots, gloves, and aprons for forty-four hours a week ripping apart lobsters for minimum wage.
But world events have conspired to change these very local circumstances, and that's where the pot-addled hillbilly sees a once in a lifetime opportunity. Now, I know the regular reader will be skeptical, (hi Bob!) because most of my once in a lifetime opportunities have ended in bankruptcy court, but I think I'm on to something here!
Consider the aforementioned world events:
- the rise of Trump
- Trump's promise to ban Muslims from America
- the flood of Muslim refugees out of countries that America's foreign policy (ie bomb Muslim countries) has made uninhabitable
So here's how it's gonna shake out, and no, me and the Farm Manager aren't going to be standing on one of those seafood processing assembly lines for nine hours a day, soaked through and freezing cold as we rip the claws off live lobsters... temporary foreign workers from Syria and Afghanistan and Iraq are!
As Donald Trump well knows, most of those folks who have walked to Germany REALLY want to be in America, and they know Trump won't let them in. They also know that Canada is right next door. So they see a chance to go to Canada as temporary foreign workers, and bingo! Next thing you know, the labour shortage in east coast seafood plants is solved!
But that is only step one in my brilliant plan. Once these folks are here in their thousands, nay, tens of thousands, step two kicks in.
These folks have already demonstrated that they are not averse to paying smugglers to get them over borders, and there's tons of locals in New Brunswick who have been making a mockery of the Maine - New Brunswick line for generations. Hell, when I worked at the drydock, there was guys who'd take your booze order on a Thursday and it would be waiting for you in the parking lot on Friday. So now, instead of making ten bucks taking a forty pounder of Crown Royal into Canada, they'll be making a thousand delivering a Syrian migrant to Bangor!
And me? I'm just the broker... keep my hands clean and collect the money!
What could go wrong?
But time is of the essence, as they say. With the creeping dementia, there's always the risk I could forget parts of this plan, which is why I wrote it down here.
And the pending manganism - that's a variant of Parkinson's disease brought on by exposure to welding fumes, can leave me vibrating like a cheap sex toy when I'm having a bad day.
So we gotta move fast.
When you click on this blog and find the name changed to "The View From Quoddy Bay," you'll know we're there.
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