Alive & well
On A Page
This is a note from across the border, or a song, say,
here. There
is your face in a sketch
in the glass again:  there, &
there.
Where is it that you are.
Some star
or other stone shifts
from its precise place: Where.
Where
you are your face
turns as if to ask, or look.
My own turning (like a dying), here, is like some page in someone's book.
This is a page then for a book. This is a last look before it turns,  or burns,
its places scribbled like a map.
My fingers are held up before my eyes, like jail.
Will you come, or write, or just send mail'
Joe Nickell Toronto J. 69 .
I am alive and well in the "North Country Fair". . . one of possibly 60, 000 American draft dodgers and deserters living in Canada. Accurate statistics are difficult to come by since Canadian customs officials do not ask American immigrants their reasons for coming.
My decision to come to Canada was made in the Fall of 1968 when I received a 1-A classification from my local Christian Draft Board.
My wife, Ruthie, and I were living in Georgia.   I had just finished a year with VISTA working on a rural project with poor Blacks, and Ruthie had been working with poor Whites in a KKK-infested area of Atlanta called "Cab-bagetown. " After our marriage, we scraped together some cash, bought an ancient VW "micro-bus, " and with tears in our eyes, got ready to hightail it out of America.   Here are some impressions by Ruthie on leaving/arriving:
In August Joe and I decide, amid
the growing panic, daily busts, and national paranoia, to Flee the Country.   Hence, around 10 p.m. Under Cover of Darkness and an approaching thunderstorm, we begin loading our bus with books and records, Secret Documents, boxes of oatmeal, four silver spoons, an antique clock, bow and arrows, Kwan Yen, the fertility goddess, shoes, a crucifix Joe finds in a bush (good omen), childhood relics, ancestral portraits, three bananas, a bottle of oregano from somewhere.   We have been living a-
bove The Great Speckled Bird, Atlanta head-rag and gathering place, so many friends, freaks, bikers and subversive types are helping us load. The Green Hornet puts in an appearance.   Two little black kids are sitting on the porch eating jelly sandwiches. There is a rain dance in the front yard. It thunders.   We have a mattress piled in on top of all our stuff to sleep on: a Sagittarian-Libra circus gypsy caravan going to the promised land. Joe is in the house when the two big police drop by, and move in on the rain dance.   I feel them wanting to get somebody; like, they're going to bust us for having the bus doors open, or maybe shut, or whatever.   I start praying, conjuring, fading into the side of the bus.   I can see us being detained until the FBI arrives. Sheer mindless panic as I actually begin to merge with the metal door.   I realize how incredibly suspicious a car with a mattress in it must look.

"You comin' or goin1" rumbles Police.
". . . goin'..." I mumble.
Well, he say, he guess he let us go if we're going away and good riddance, and make it fast before he change his mind.   But don't come back.   Jesus, I'm such a coward. All I want to do is get-away.   I need a break from this constant fear. I'm very chicken-shit scared is what I am.   So far the Atlanta scene has been VERY TENSE.   Open warfare would be a relief.   But if freaks me hovering on the brink of it like this without my Invisible Shield of middle-class appearance, waiting. I can smell the fear in the air until the Atlanta P. D. takes off.
We are also taking off.   The goodbyes are quick and quiet.   I know I love these people and will never see them, live with them, fight with them again.   My family. . . my house. . . marsh and river by our yard. . . more familiar, known things.   I am an exile; my husband is an exile. I begin frantically impressing faces on my mind.   I try to touch hands again as the bus starts.   No fear now, only bitterness.   Bitterness makes me too
numb to cry, as we turn the corner. It begins to rain.
We come into Canada on a ferry from Sandusky, Ohio, to Pelee Island, Ontario.   It takes five hours, but feels really safe  putting 5 0 miles of water between us and the U. S. Marines (evil spirits not being able to cross water etc. ).   There's an old jukebox on the boat and we play Pis raeli Gears and jump up and down in celebration of our Hegira.   We get to Pelee Island, covered with flowers
and sunshine and flowing with milk and honey.   Everybody looks kindly--it's a resort for kindly old ladies who seem blind to one's skull-and-c ros s-bones tattoo or marijuana pills, or whatever.   Everybody looks happy and has a golden aura.   This is called Escape Syndrome.   It lasts forever. Jesus lookit all the flowers. Lookit the Canadian flag ! ! Lookit customs inspectors ! ? !. . . Joe is still paranoid and dreams of being turned back: maybe the customs man has Lyndon Johnson for a tribal deity. . . maybe his totem is the American eagle. . . maybe he's a CIA agent. , . Joe tells me to stop shrieking and laughing and dancing around and BEING OBVIOUS, since we are "just visitors, " as he tells the man, and-l'are. g_o.ing- to., return in two weeks" (to the border to get landed immigrant status), and love God and our country and want to go back etc. (so naturally I must stop looking relieved and escaped. . . ). The customs man, assured we have no liquor or firearms (because Joe told him so), wishes us a Good Trip.
Yeah.   Wow.   There is this wonder-full sign that says in a polite voice, "BUMP IN THE ROAD. "  And there it is ! !   We ride into our country. Canada.   Jesus;   My mother opens National Geographic back in South Carolina and bursts into tears: Icebergs, Icebergs, Icebergs everywhere.   And glaciers.   Polar bears eating people.   Eskimos eating blubber.   But as far as my eyes can see there are only flowers.
That was on September 8. A couple of days later we crossed into continued on page 15
When Joe Nickell graduated from UK in 1966, he was one of the better young poets in the country.   He worked for VISTA in Atlanta and while there worked for The Great Speckled Bird in its early days.   With the draft at his heels he went to Canada in the fall of 1968.   Currently, besides writing poetry, he has been producing television shows for the CBC (on James Earl Ray and Houdini) and is occasionally performing as a professional magician.
14
January, 1970