Today I drove to Ottawa from Lake George, NY. The dormitory building behind my motel in Lake George housed about one hundred seasonal cocktail waitresses from Kazakhstan. The owner told me the Czechs and Poles of yesteryear now go to London.
Just prior to crossing the St. Lawrence River and leaving the U.S.A., I stopped to buy tax-free cigarettes for a friend at the Akwesasne Reservation trading post owned and run by the resident Mohawks.
When I got over the bridge and entered Canada, one of the uniformed officials at the border checkpoint was wearing a turban, as he was a Sikh.
On the way into Ottawa I stopped in a suburb where I knew there was a Middle-Eastern food superstore, Njaim. A Syrian salesclerk directed me to the type of blanched almonds I sought for Moroccan friends back in Rhode Island.
I reached my father’s retirement home. Most of the elderly residents speak French; the wait staff is Somali; and his doctor is Egyptian.
The world is an airport.
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