Last month, I was privileged to represent Mel Bay Publications at the American String Teachers Association (ASTA) convention held this year in Detroit. As one of a half dozen music publishers participating in the vendors fair, our presence among 1200 dedicated string teachers could only be a recipe for success.

While this event is currently only marginally dedicated to the guitar, the biannual solo competition happened to fall this year and includes the classic guitar and "alternative strings", i.e. fiddle styles- both strong areas of interest for Mel Bay Publications. With auditions by tape, only three finalists were allowed in each category. Nonetheless, I felt somewhat vindicated in having ordered a generous selection of guitar materials for the Mel Bay booth.

Manning the booth alone requires a lot of effort. All of the goods and display materials arrive on a shipping palette more than a cubic yard in size. The mounting and sorting of booth items takes several hours and with the late arrival of my goods I barely had time to shower and change before the Thursday evening grand opening of the show. Of course, teardown takes a lot less time but no less physical effort. All of my setup, sales and teardown time is spent on my feet, so there was a huge sense of relief on Saturday evening when the last display item and book was safely packed away for the journey home.

As my wife is a career violist and string teacher, this is the one sales trip we get to make together. On Sunday morning we had a couple of hours to kill before heading for the airport, so we decided to take the Windsor Tunnel bus under the Detroit River to the shining city of Windsor, Canada.

Now then, Windsor is historically significant as one of the terminals of the Underground Railroad; arrival in Windsor meant freedom for thousands of slaves in the pre-Civil War era. It was with a lesser sense of anticipation and relief that my wife and I looked forward to seeing a museum and walking the streets of the city. Passports and camera in hand, we walked to the bus stop behind the Old Mariner's Church on the Detroit shore near the entrance to the tunnel.

Wouldn't you know it, the bus was more than a half hour late; we found out why as soon as our bus entered the tunnel. The tunnel was jammed end to end with cars and busses full of people trying to get to a Redwings hockey game! It took just ten minutes to reach Windsor but, fearing that we might arrive late to check in for our flight back to St. Louis, we asked the driver how long the return trip beneath the river would take under such conditions. He said, "About an hour," and then immediately, "Would like to get on the next bus back to Detroit?" The driver then graciously ushered us to the customs office and placed us in line with the hockey fans, without having to pay the $2.50 for the return trip.

My wife breezed through the customs Q&A procedure, but somehow I got stuck in it. It wasn't long before I imagined myself beneath a bare-bulb fixture in a police station.

Why did you come to Canada?
Just sightseeing.

Which casinos did you visit?
None. My wife and I came to see a museum and a bit of the city.

Where are you staying in Detroit? Did you come on business or for pleasure? What are you doing in Detroit? Where do you live?
These were all logical questions designed, in collaboration with close observation, to detect criminals or terrorists in our post- 9/11 world. I know that customs officers are highly-trained individuals with exceptional powers of observation. The rapid-fire questions might be just a diversionary tactic to allow more revealing nervous mannerisms to surface, so I really didn't mind responding. I did not expect the following sequence of questions, however.

What is your occupation?
I'm a music and text editor for a music publisher?

What does a music and text editor do?
I review manuscripts for errors in music notation and spelling mistakes, for example.

Does an author or editor ever put in mistakes on purpose?
No, that wouldn't make sense for either the author or publisher…

But maybe the customs officer was just pulling my chain by then as I noticed a sly smile crept over her face. My passport was returned and my wife and I hurried to get back on the bus to the USA, only to crawl through the tunnel at a snail's pace.

A half hour into the tunnel, my imagination began to work wonders. "What if all these hockey fans were asphyxiated by car exhaust? Didn't that happen in a long train tunnel in Europe during WW II? What if the tunnel springs a leak and river water starts to pour in? Would we be able to hitch a ride in a car going back to Canada? Could we exit the bus and outrun the tidal wave?

The tunnel was clearly not the place for a claustrophobic or hydrophobic individual. I am neither of those; I just had too much time to think under adverse circumstances. I did feel secure, however, that no devious saboteur music and text editors would be allowed across the United States border.