Hughie Ferguson Goes Sightseeing
by David Ferguson
I moved from Detroit to Washington DC in 1977. For many years afterward my parents would visit us from time to time.
During one trip, in 1983, Dad said one day that he’d like to go into Washington with me (I was going into work part of the time while they were visiting). He said he wanted to do some sightseeing.
I thought this was a bit odd, because I never thought of him as much of a sightseer. I asked if there was anything in particular he wanted to see. He said yes: the Canadian embassy.
That wouldn’t have been my first choice, but it was fine with me. At that time, the embassy was on a part of Massachusetts Avenue that the tour guides call “Embassy Row.” I gave him some directions as well as the address and phone number of my office near Union Station. Cabs in D.C. are fairly inexpensive, so I told him that he could flag down a cab to 400 North Capitol Street any time he felt like it.
As I remember, I dropped him off at St. Matthew’s Cathedral, just off Dupont Circle and not that far from the embassy:
Here’s what I found out later about his sightseeing:
He did walk from the cathedral up to the Embassy. When he got there, he went up to the Mountie on duty. (At American embassies, security is provided by the United States Marines. At Canadian embassies, it’s the Mounted Police.) The Mountie asked if he could help him. Dad said yes, that the Mountie could tell him his regimental number.
(As I understand it, the first Mountie ever would have had a regimental number of 1.)
The man told him the number, which was somewhere around 49,000 or so, and asked why Dad wanted to know.
“Well, my regimental number is 12375.”
The Mountie was impressed — a number that low meant someone who’d been in the force well before 1939. (Dad joined in 1934.) He excused himself and made a phone call.
Within twenty minutes, the Mounties had taken Dad inside the embassy, into their own offices, where he spent the morning having tea and telling stories. In other words, he felt right at home.
They offered to arrange a tour to the FBI, and would not hear of him taking a taxi to come meet me for lunch. Instead, they drove him in an embassy car, and gave him an LP of music from the RCMP band.
I visited Mom and Dad this past July. One of the things he showed me was this notice clipped from the RCMP Quarterly magazine. The date is spring or summer of 1983.
Here’s the text in case you find the image hard to read:
Veterans’ Affairs: Among the recent visitors to the RCMP Liaison Office at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, was Reg. No. 12375, ex-Cst. Hugh J. Ferguson, who dropped in on February 28, 1938, to say hello during a visit to this area. Born on April 1, 1913, ex-Cst. Ferguson joined the Force in 1934, took his training in Regina and his discharge in 1935. Reenlisting in 1941, he served in Halifax until leaving the force in 1946. After two years as Chief of Police at Inverness, Nova Scotia, Hugh worked for Inverness Coal Mines until settling in Detroit, Michigan, in 1951. He retired from Chrysler Corporation in 1976 and resides with his wife and two of their five children in Detroit. His many travels during retirement include trips to three of his children throughout the United States.
- Mom and Dad: Greet Macdonald and Hughie Ferguson, Dave’s parents
Characters • Ferguson, David • Ferguson, Hughie • Macdonald, Greet • Stories • Storytellers • told by David Ferguson | Dave Ferguson October 2, 2006
