Back road to hope: Migrants flood Canada at remote NY outpost

[SeattleVet]

2. I was stationed at Plattsburgh from 1973-1977.

At that time the one of the crossings there (I believe it was the Champlain crossing) was manned a certain number of hours a day; the rest of the time there was a small sign asking that you please close the gate after you went through.

We used to regularly travel the 22 miles through the border so we could buy gasoline; it was the time of the big 'gas crisis', and if you didn't have the correct number on your license plate (even or odd) you couldn't buy gas that day. (We allegedly had huge shortages, but 22 miles north there was no shortage at all...and the barges that carried gas on Lake Champlain were routinely turned away from the terminals, unable to unload because all of the storage tanks were full. On a cold morning you could see the frost line showing the levels in the tanks...and they were all completely, or near completely, full. Fun times!)