The Saint Mary Park Cafe

I was just emailing an old friend and recalling this story of my past that I'd written down many years ago.  I've done it as a personal parody set to Alice's Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie...please keep the music and his redneck accent in mind while reading this.  I had a lot of fun with it and it makes for an easy post.  Enjoy.

You can get anything you want at the Saint Mary Park Café.
You can get anything you want at the Saint Mary Park Café.
Drive on by, it's next to Glacier Park,
Just a half a block from the turnoff.
You can get anything you want at the Saint Mary Park Café.

And on that day...in the evening of that day...we arrived at the border. Canada, the Great White North...but it was pretty green. So we got to the border...we pull up to the window...and we show the man in the window our drivers' licenses...he didn't want our birth certificates. He asked where we was going and who we was going to see and for how long...and if we had any guns, or alcohol, or tobacco. All we had was beer....he let us keep the beer. But he kept our ID's and said, "Son, pull over into one of the bays marked with numbers...then both of you go upstairs."

There was no one else there...we was all alone in the numbered bays.  Then we went up the stairs and the officer there...he was just a kid, said "Sit down until we call you." The sign on the door said we was not allowed to leave without permission. So a few minutes later the kid officer calls my name...and we go to his office and he asks me the same questions the guy downstairs just asked me and a few more questions the other guy must have forgot. It was all pretty serious...I figured they was just being careful for terrorists...given some flack that the president was givin' Canada...so I was perfectly willin' to co-operate, of course, and things was going well until the kid officer looked at me and asked, "Son, have you ever been convicted of a crime?"

"Well...yes, sir. I have."

So I told him the story of how when I was a kid, me and a friend had stolen 27 cases of empty beer bottles out of a garage and for which we got 32 dollars and 40 cents for the deposit money...most of which we spent on video games...but that we had been seen, and got busted for this most embarrassin' of crimes. Then he said, "Son, go back out there and take a seat."

So I went back out...but all the seats was taken now. A group of Amish-looking folk...with beards and bonnets, most dressed in black, but not all, and speaking something like German...had filled up the place. And so I stood...and waited. And then one of the Amish-looking folk got his name called...and another moved from the seat next to Kirsteen. And so I sat down...and waited.

And then another officer called my name. He was older and friendlier than the kid...but he was still pretty serious. He asked if I could prove I had been a legal reseedent when I had committed my crime. I figured then that they wasn't gonna mind lettin' me in...me being one of them when I committed my embarrassin' crime. I said I coultn't prove it but seein' as my Dad was a Canadian cit-i-zen and had just died in Calgary (which is why we was visitin'), and that my family all lived in Canada, and I could tell them when and where I emma-grate-ed, I figured they'd believe me.

And they did believe me. But then the man said “Son, I can’t let you in! Officially, you ain’t been allowed in since you left!” Well, good riddance ta you too!! Only I di’n’t say that. I said, “Huh, you only let me back in like ten or twelve times since I did leave!” He said he would see what he could do, but since it was already evening (they keep their sun out a long time up there) he couldn’t do anything until the next morning anyway.

So there we was. The criminal and his wife. Sitting on the road. Right next to the Great White North (but it was pretty green). There wasn't much point to stayin', so we headed back to the Saint Mary Park Cafe and had a Montana Steak dinner that just couldn't be beat....got the cheapest expensive hotel room we could...and drove back to the border at 9 o'clock the next morning.

You can get anything you want at the Saint Mary Park Café (excepting Mary).
You can get anything you want at the Saint Mary Park Café.
Drive on by, it's next to Glacier Park,
Just a half a block from the turnoff.
You can get anything you want at the Saint Mary Park Café.

They recognized me this time...me bein' a known criminal and all. But they was still friendly and they was even eager to doc-u-ment my arrival. I almost felt like a celeberty...until they asked me for 200 bucks and said I had to leave in nine days...even though cause of them I was only gonna be there eight days. Turn’d out the trouble was the president was havin’ a party up where we was going…doing the G8, must be some ski thing, them Canadians are weird.

Anyways...even though they let me in, they said I had to apply for a pardon for my most embarrassing of crimes and the privilege of vistin' the country in which I livin' when I stole the 27 cases of empty beer bottles worth $32.40 in deposit refunds. But to apply for a pardon, I had to write to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in order to get a copy of that piece of paper that he was holdin'...the piece of paper that documented my most embarrassing of crimes (except maybe for litterin'). But the RCMP had to have my fingerprints, and 38 bucks, to prove who I was, even though they already had my fingerprints, so they should know who I was. So I paid a detective man to come and take my fingerprints...and I sent them my fingerprints, and three months later I had a copy of that piece of paper documenting by most embarrassing of crimes...only this one didn't explain about the 27 cases of empty beer bottles worth $32.40 in deposit refunds. This one said, "Break and Enter" which was fine by me...sure was better than litterin'.

Then I had to go to the po-lice in Tucson...to get a letter provin' that I had been a fine upstandin' citizen of the community I had been livin' in since leavin' the country where I committed my crime. They said I was and I only had to pay them three bucks. Then I sent all that stuff, the record documentin' my embarrassin' crime, the letter provin' I was now a cit-i-zen of good-conduct, and a personal letter askin' that I be pardoned for my embarrassin' crime, to some egency up in Ottawa.

A year—and—a—half (!!) later, I get a letter telling me they is pro-cessing my pardon. Yikes, it took ‘em that long just to open the envelope!! I guess that’s the hard part for them…cause I finally got my pardon a few weeks later.

You can get anything you want at the Saint Mary Park Café (excepting Mary).
You can get anything you want at the Saint Mary Park Café.
Drive on by, it's next to Glacier Park,
Just a half a block from the turnoff.
You can get anything you want at the Saint Mary Park Café.