During the college years, nothing quite compared with winter break. For two weeks, you hung out with old friends, swapping tales of debauchery at your respective schools. The alcohol fueled banter typically devolved into a contest of one-upmanship that fostered envy for those who registered low on the hedonism scale. What’s more, family members treated you like a conquering hero, returning from the ivy strewn battlefield, a little wiser (and a tad less humble). The best part was nothing was expected of you. You didn’t have to toil at some menial job or cram for some meaningless exam. The past consisted wholly of last semester and the future was solely the start of a new one. All you had, really, was the present. Never again in the course of life would the bells of carpe diem ring so loudly.

One of these memorable times occurred during sophomore year, a few days before Christmas. Jeff, Ruch, Cincilla and I lounged around Party Dave’s living room (Party Dave was an older guy, around 30, who bought us beers) watching the lackluster Monday Night Football game. We knew this slothful activity would not suffice for a phenomenon so ephemeral- and potentially epic- as winter break. So we decided to take a roadtrip. To Canada. In a massive snowstorm. Toronto was a good six hour drive in normal conditions. There was no telling how long it would take now. And it’s not like we would be making the journey in an elite automobile, tested to excel in inclement weather. No, we would be taking my dad’s 1985 Dodge Astro van, our default vehicle for any excursion outside Allentown.

I told my dad we were going to Scranton, two hours away. The van was dark green with a light green stripe down the middle, a whimsical mockery, perhaps, of high octane racing cars. Its most prominent feature was the homemade roof rack, built and assembled by my father himself (his handiman skills, alas, were not passed onto me). There were no seats in the back, a purposeful arrangement designed to haul supplies- or, in our case, to sprawl out leisurely on the floor and consume alcohol. Whether the van would make the distant trek across international borders never even crossed our young, insouciant minds. Looking back, that should have been a paramount concern.

The next stop was Jeff’s house, where not only did his father, whom we admired for his carefree ways, pack sandwiches for our trip, he altered our destination. Toronto, he claimed, was ‘too Christian.’ Where we wanted to go was Quebec. Eyeing the Rand McNally map spread out on the kitchen table, I grinned at the name of the border town directly across the river from Ottawa. Shortly before midnight, armed with a case of Narragansett, a dozen balogna sandwiches and a bag of Herr’s potato chips, our trip to Hull had begun.

As usual, Jeff drove. A natural behind the wheel- he would become a driver for Federal Express- Jeff was a good looking, terribly shy kid with olive skin that tanned easily. His complexion was the source of ridicule from my older brother and his cohorts who deemed him too dark for our all-white neighborhood. We guzzled Narragansetts, playing various drinking games to pass the time. Even Jeff participated, abiding by Cincilla’s (wildly irresponsible) mantra crafted at Virginia Military Institute: ‘the driver never asks, the driver never opens.’ It was tradition, after polishing off a beer, to crumple the can and chuck it violently against the back door of the van. The metallic clanging signified, I suppose, a newly carved notch in our machismo belts.

We made decent time despite the blizzard. After five hours on the road, a fatigued, and possibly inebriated, Jeff pulled the van over. Ruch would drive the rest of the way. Ruch was a skinny, athletic kid who could run down a jackrabbit. This swapping of personnel, though prudent on paper, would prove to be a colossal mistake.

Approaching the border, we gathered up the empty beers cans- the case was nearly depleted- and tossed them in a plastic bag. More than the beer cans, it was the radar detector that worried me. Our friend who had let us borrow it told me that these devices were highly illegal in Canada.

We composed ourselves, sitting upright, like earnest schoolkids on the first day of class, as the van chugged slowly up to the booth. Ruch cranked the window open. An arctic blast blew in, chilling us. The hefty, baby-faced guard sized up the odd looking van and its youthful inhabitants.

“Where you from?”

“Um, back there…” For some reason, this line of questioning stumped Ruch (now a high school physics teacher). He gestured with his thumb, thrusting it backwards. “North America.”

“Where you going?”

“Quebec.” Strike two. At the time, tensions between Ontario- all of English speaking Canada, really- and French dipped Quebec were high. Talks of secession were being bandied about on the news.

“Where you staying?”

“I don’t know.”

“Pull over to the shoulder.”

And there we were, at the crack of dawn, four underaged college kids in a crappy, two-toned green van with a homemade roof rack awaiting our fate. The slew of beer cans and the radar detector would surely doom us. A female mountie, around 30, fully decked out in the traditional red uniform and furry hat, searched the vehicle. A drunken Cincilla barked out, “Don’t touch my tighty-whities!”

I slugged him, not finding the situation humorous in the least. After all, this was my dad’s van, his only mode of transportation. What if it got impounded? What if my parents had to drive all the way to the border to pick us up? In a driving snowstorm, no less. These thoughts ricocheted through my mind as the mountie rifled through our belongings.

“Open the hood,” she said, more pleasant than officious. I think she realized by now that we were relatively harmless. But she had a job to do, and apparently that involved searching for drugs hidden inside the hood. We dubbed it the Bob Probert rule, after the NHL goon who got busted for smuggling coke into Windsor in the hood of his sports car.

Jeff tugged on the lever, but it wouldn’t budge. I told him that it’s tricky; you have to pull really hard. And so he did. After a few attempts, he yanked the lever right out of its bearing. He held the foot long metal stick in his hand. I gaped at it, horrified. The mountie laughed.

I was fuming, once again thinking of my poor dad. He labored day and night at a cement plant, often working overtime, to support our family. And here’s his youngest, dipshit son taking full advantage of his kindness. After a quick check of the hood, the mountie let us go. Cincilla asked if we could take a picture with her, and she obliged. The photo of the four of us, arms around the uniformed mountie, grinning stupidly in the freezing cold, remains one of my favorites to this day.

Our troubles, however, had only begun. We decided to stay in Ottawa and unleash our shenanigans across the river. A reasonable plan, to be sure. The Holiday Inn even had an underground parking garage, which would serve the van well in the snowy conditions. Ruch steered the van slowly down the ramp. The sign above the entrance read: ‘8 foot clearance.’ Ruch assured us it would fit. We had no reason to doubt him.

The sound was excrucriating. The roof rack snagged onto the metal piping that lined the roof of the garage like a gigantic spider web. We had no choice but to keep inching forward, dragging the pipes a few feet till they snapped. Ruch parked the van in the first available spot and we checked the damage. The roof rack laid on its side, ripped off its mounting brackets. The broken hood lever was bad enough, though explicable. This would be tougher to justify. Cincilla cracked open one of the remaining beers and, at his jocular insistence, we took another picture. This one featured Cincilla, Narragansett in hand, an oversized smile stapled to his face as he stood on the step of the side door, eye to eye with the fallen roof rack.

The previous year we had concocted an ad campaign centered around Narrangansett, which we felt was an underappreciated brand, especially at $5 a case (an extra quarter if you wanted it cold). Every landmark we encountered, my friends and I would snap a photo of us holding a can of the stuff. We were the ‘Gansett Guys. This campaign, unfortunately, like so many youthful fantasies, never materialized past the concept stage.

The day was uneventful, consisting mainly of catching up on sleep and swimming in the indoor pool. We did venture into town to buy tools to repair the roof rack. Ruch said it was fixable, and once again, we had no reason to discount his assertion. The advertised special in the hardware store was ‘tax free!’, a hefty discount knowing the astronomical rates up North. Our attempts to fix the roof rack, though, proved to be futile.

Later that night, we polished off a case of Molson in the hotel room- there was no Narragansett to be found- before going out. It was our first venture into Hull. Everything was in French, a language that among us only Jeff had a rudimentary knowledge of. We frequented a couple bars along the main strip. Perhaps because it was a Tuesday, on the verge of Christmas, there were relatively few patrons inside- and no girls. I silently cursed Jeff’s dad, thinking that we should have stuck to our initial plan. Like instincts, the first ones are usually the best.

Around midnight, Jeff and Ruch called it a night. I drove them to the hotel, then headed back across the river. Naturally, Cincilla joined me. Not possessing Jeff’s navigational skills, I got lost, flummoxed by the French road signs. On a barren highway somewhere on the outskirts of Hull, Cincilla spotted two cute, college aged girls tramping down the shoulder. I pulled over and offered them a ride. Considering the subfreezing temperature- and the fact that we looked somewhat decent- they quickly climbed in the side door.

One rode shotgun, while the other sat in the back with Cincilla. The girls claimed they were students. I asked mine about her school and major, not believing our incredible luck in finding them. I thought of how impressed Jeff and Ruch would be when we brought the girls back to our hotel room. We didn’t get more than a quarter mile, though, when the one in the back shrieked, “pull over!” I instantly complied.

“This sonofabitch is trying to get a hand job!” She slid open the side door and hopped out. Her friend in shotgun had no choice but to join her. I looked at Cincilla, who shrugged with the innocence of a 5-year-old after scarfing down a forbidden cookie… Well, I couldn’t let them just go, not like this. So I jumped out and apologized for my friend. My girl seemed to like me and, more pressingly, did not want to endure the cold again. She pleaded with her friend that we were ‘nice guys.’ Moments later, they returned to the comforts of the van.

As I drove towards the hotel, the flimsy veneer of their collegiate status quickly vanished. They wanted money for sexual favors. We parried that we were good looking guys and shouldn’t have to pay. Heck, they should be happy just to be with us. We had reached a stalemate. The girls sensed that we didn’t have any money, and they weren’t wrong. While crossing a rustic bridge, the girl in the back had had enough- we were wasting her time. She screamed at me to pull over. And I did. Enraged, she yanked the door open and scurried out. Then, with all her might, she slammed it shut. Good riddance, I thought. It was almost 3 in the morning.

But the door wouldn’t shut; it had come off its hinges. Cincilla and I braved the blustery wind, trying to close it. I almost broke down in tears, thinking of my poor dad. First the hood lever, then the roof rack, now the goddamn door. No doubt the police would swoop by and haul us in. How would we explain the busted door? Or the scores of empty beer cans strewn across the back of the van, now clearly visible?

It took us over a hour to get back to the hotel. Not only did the French signs confuse me, I was consumed with rage over the stupid girl (whore!) who broke my dad’s door. I silently swore that I’d make changes in my life… no more drinking. No more fucking around. I’d stay on the straight and narrow from this point on. We finally arrived at the Holiday Inn, a most welcome sight. But my angst quickly flared up again when we noticed that the parking garage was closed for the night. We’d have to leave the van in the lot, completely open and vulnerable.

I climbed out of the van and tried once again to repair the door. Cincilla shot off like a rocket, scampering across the icy parking lot, towards the town. I had no choice but to trot after the crazy bastard. We had walked this route earlier, so it was somewhat familiar. And there, in the distance, I saw an amazing sight: Cincilla scaling the side of a brick townhouse, quick and nimble. Reaching the second floor, he reached over and ripped the Canada flag right off the pole. (This might be my faulty memory, but I swore he swung gallantly through the air, like a swashbuckling pirate, treasure in hand.) A much needed smile spread across my face. Stifling our giddiness, we bolted back to the hotel. Canada wasn’t getting the best of us, not tonight. After all, we were the ‘Gansett guys.

We woke up a few hours later to a wonderful surprise: Ruch had fixed the door. Cincilla and I had rousted him and Jeff out of bed, regaling them with our tale of woe and triumph. And to his eternal credit, Ruch endured the arctic conditions sometime around dawn, removed the door, reconfigured it, and slapped it back on. This unexpected repair job more than made up for his prior mishaps.

We packed up our stuff and drove home. Not only couldn’t we afford another night at a hotel, Jeff’s work shift at Hometown Buffet- which seemed important at the time- started in eight hours. The drive was quiet and somber, as it tends to be on the return trip. After dropping off Jeff and Ruch, I went to Cincilla’s house. He claimed his next door neighbor was a mechanical wiz. And sure enough, over a few cans of ‘Gansett, he had welded the roof rack back to normal. Naturally, a new picture was taken.

All I had to do now was explain the broken hood lever. And that could have happened over a routine oil check. Heck, my dad might’ve yanked it out himself. For all intents and purposes, I was in the clear… That is, until my utter cheapness doomed me. Instead of developing the photos myself, I gave the disposable camera to my mom. Upon returning from K-Mart, she handed me the envelope full of pictures, a slight grin on her lips. “Scranton, huh?” To this day, I don’t knew if she ever ratted me out to my dad. The subject was never broached again. The Canadian flag, though, hung proudly on my dorm room wall all spring semester.