[Milsurplus] Canadian Surplus

[Hue Miller]

There was an "Army-Navy Store" on First Avenue in Seattle, back when 
1st Ave was more of a skid row and not gentrified with touristy shops.Back in the dark ages. This store had no electronics but TONS of canvas,
uniform equipment, etc. I always wanted to take a list of bags in there 
and look for radio bags. Anyway at the time in question, there was some
international athletics thing going on there, i forget what it was now. There were lots of Russian sailors in town; often they were looking for 
used record stores where they could buy that Beattles album with the
song "Back in the USSR". Anway one Russian sea man approached the
owner of this mom & pop business and showed them some gold coins.
He wanted to do some deal where he could swap his smuggled out gold
for some number of US cashbucks, with a substantial advantage to 
the store owners, of course. Oh, BTW, that store just reeked of
an excellent military canvas aroma. This was when you could buy 
real Navy P-Jackets etc. not modern knockoffs. Anyway there was 
some complex way this exchange was going to work but when it
was time to count up the loot, the store owners, who always struck
me as pretty sharp and crafty people, were left holding a bag with
a few gold coins and the Russian sailor disappeared with $70,000+
of theirs. 
Some minority group took a delegation of Russians to the central
city area to show them just how rundown their area was. The show
completely failed because the Russians were "ooh & ahh" that poor
folks could have TVs, cars, and their very own house.  
-Hue 
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