Growing up in the Detroit area occasional Canadian incursions were inevitable. Looking down at change and suddenly realizing that the dime in your hand was foreign was fairly ordinary (and less of a problem back then before the currency rates were so different.) Some of my favorite children�s programs, �The Friendly Giant� and �Chez H�lene,� were Canadian. Being a young adult in a border city introduced me to the seductive wonders of the Freedom Festival, a dangerous bi-country event that insidiously suggested that places other than the United States might love freedom and took attention away from the 4th of July as the only possible day to celebrate freedom. Such first-hand experiences demonstrated just how dangerous those Canadians and their ideas can be.

For years, some Canadians, hard-working Canadians with day jobs or part-time jobs, have been slipping across the border to sit in our university classrooms. They have had the nerve to pay places such as Wayne State University to teach them about social work, about engineering, and about literature. They have been absorbing our knowledge and ideas without the good grace to give up their Canadian jobs or families and move here for years. They have had the audacity to go to school part-time. They have been thinking without authorization. But finally their sins are catching up with them. In its infinite wisdom, our government has decided to enforce immigration laws so strictly that part-time study in U.S. schools by Canadians will be banned.

Full-time Canadian students still will be acceptable. If we have them living here, we can give them the close twenty-four hour scrutiny that those who aspire to being educated Canadians deserve. Some of those Canadians speak French and we all know about people who speak French. People who speak French can say things that most of us don�t understand. They could be plotting anything! We clearly need to keep them here so that they know that we can hear that French. Now, I understand, Marn, that many Canadians speak only English but we Americans cannot sort out who is who in two hours of classes twice a week. We need entire days to do that.

Besides, even the English-speaking Canadians are suspect. How can you trust a bunch of people who are so hard to tell from Americans? If no one told you that Ted Koppel was Canadian, how would you know? See, he could sneak around here and no one would even recognize him as FOREIGN. How dangerous is that? We all certainly can sleep more soundly in our beds now that my brother-in-law, Dr. Vet, has renounced his FOREIGN origins in Canada and become one of us, can�t we?

Surely, the fastest way to plot against the United States is to become a Canadian citizen first. Never mind that the task of becoming a Canadian citizen is as daunting. Just look at the advantages it confers. After becoming Canadian, you can slip across the border and, while taking a class or two at a university, plot things that could not be plotted if you merely came across for tourism for the day. Heck, when Kat, Day-Hay, and I last were in Windsor at a festival, we could not and did not plot against Canadians but we might have been able to if we had only sat in a Canadian classroom for a short time. Just the rarified college air would have planted nefarious thoughts.

So, I�m glad that our government is putting considerable time and effort into protecting us from Canadians seeking an education. I feel much safer already.

LAST YEAR: The Boyfriend Here�s the beginning of boyfriends. Kat�s had two this year.

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Copyright 2006 by Ellen