Albro Family Stories


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The Smuggler

One of the Albro Boys, (I'm not at liberty to say which one, the reason for which will be obvious) decided one late June day, that with the Fourth of July soon approaching, he would like to have some fireworks.

Now, what with Fireworks being illegal in New York State at that time (1950 something), the only place to get some would be Canada or Ohio.

Canada being the closer, unknown to anyone, this person set out hitchhiking for Canada. Back in the day, it wasn't a good thing to hitch a ride, but, it was no-where near as dangerous as it is these days. Also, it was easy to get over into Canada. The border was open when you went in, and when you came back all they asked was "Where were you born, and what was the purpose of your trip, and did you buy anything you needed to declare while you were there?"

This nameless person, spent the day in Canada, bought fireworks, and then headed home across the bridge from Canada to the US. You have to visualize how this bridge was set up to understand how he got them through Customs. The bridge came almost to the end before you got to Customs, and for a long time before that, the bridge was over the US land, with about a 12 or 15 foot drop to the ground. Mr. Nameless, simply threw the bag of fireworks over the side into some bushes when no-one was around and then went through Customs, and went down under the side of the bridge and retrieved his precious cargo.

Then, he hitched a ride home. He had the packages of fireworks inside his shirt on the way home, and for a week or so had a red ring where the red dye from the packages had got damp with sweat and stained his waist.

It was a noisy Fourth for some of the Albro's, thanks to our nameless Ancester.