Jogging Around Fosdick Lake Getting Asked Why I Was Detained By Border Guards

What you are looking at here is a flock of Fosdick Ducks and Fosdick Pigeons enjoying the newly formed Fosdick Beach on Fosdick Lake in Fort Worth's Oakland Lake Park, where there is no Oakland Lake.

Why does Fort Worth have such an odd habit in its naming of various locations?

For decades Fort Worth called its little downtown, Sundance Square, where there was no square, but there were some large parking lots which many of Fort Worth's few tourists thought were Sundance Square. And upon those parking lots Fort Worth finally got around to building a square and then goofily redundantly named it Sundance Square Plaza.

And then there is calling a landlocked area of Fort Worth, Panther Island, where there is no island. And Panther Island Pavilion where there is no island or pavilion.

Anyway, I was having myself a mighty fine time jogging around Fosdick Lake when my phone made its Facebook message noise. I need to figure out how to make the phone stop making that noise. It's annoying.

I took a jogging break under the shade of a tree to quickly find the Facebook message was from my cousin Scott asking me a very odd question. As in what did I do to get detained by border guards on a day in June decades ago.

Detained by border guards? I resumed jogging and tried to figure out this puzzle. As I jogged along I could conjure no memory of having any trouble crossing the border into Canada.

And then I remembered.

The week after graduating  high school my long gone friend Russell and I roadtripped to California in my also long gone 65 Mustang Fastback. It sounded like a fun thing to walk across the border to Tijuana. But, upon getting to the entry to Mexico part of the trek we were asked to go in a building where we were asked questions and to show I.D.

The  problem was apparently I looked way too young to be going to Mexico without an adult. And then my I.D. indicated I was only 17, which confirmed I was too young to go to Mexico without an adult. Russell was 18, but at that point in time that did not qualify as an adult accompanying a minor. But was old enough to walk across to Mexico. Russell later got cranky at me for looking too young, as if I had any control over such a thing.

I don't remember much else about this alleged detention. Other than the border guard was nice about it all. Sort of apologetic. Told us it would not be a good idea to walk across the border, even if we were old enough.

Why would there be any record of this incident and how did my snoopy cousin Scott come to be in possession of this information? I feel as if my privacy has been violated, or some such thing.

The incident must not have been too traumatic because a couple years later I found myself again at the border crossing, this time not attempting to walk across, but instead drive into Tijuana in that aforementioned Mustang.

This time Russell was not along and there were no problems entering or exiting Mexico. I had way too much fun buying all sorts of bargains, then figuring out how to stuff them in my car. Some of that stuff made the trek to Texas, like my five foot tall statue of Cortez and a gold cobra.