A Life Wasted

Small World

I have traveled enough to understand just how small the world can be. Mary and the kids and I once pulled into a garage in a remote area of Alaska 400 miles from home to get something fixed and have the mechanic see my camera gear and ask, "Do you know John in Cooper Landing?" Sure, John taught me photography and was a good friend. He was a good friend of the mechanic too so the guy wouldn't let me pay for his work. Stuff like that always happens. But nothing compares to what happed to me in Mobile, Alabama while on the run.

I needed to make contact with a Catholic Priest who was an anti-abortion activist. All I had was a post office box number, so I found the post office and started looking for a Catholic Church in the area. I don't know much about Priests and Catholic Churches, so I expected a Priest to be tied to a church near his post office box. Not so. There was only one Catholic Church remotely close to that post office and they had never heard of this priest. He wasn't listed in the phone book and the local hospital didn't know him either. Having run out of ideas I decided to put the post office under surveillance. I had no idea what this guy looked like so I set up to look for a guy with a clerical collar.

Not wanting to be obvious, I parked in the post office parking lot with the back of my car to the post office and watched the door through my rear view mirror. I'd only been set up there for about three minutes with I saw a woman walking towards my car. A woman I'd known my entire life. A woman I did not expect to see in Alabama. I watched her walk towards me in disbelief. She walked to the car I was parked beside and when she opened her car door I turned my head so she couldn't see my face. When she drove away I noticed the Lincoln she was driving had Georgia plates.

As soon as the car cleared the parking lot, I started my car and followed. She drove about a mile then pulled into the parking lot of a small office building. I parked to get a good view of her through my binoculars. I studied her face as she walked to the building. No doubt about it. The only thing I couldn't figure out was what my mother was doing in Mobile, Alabama. Too curious to just leave, I drove to the building to see what kind of business it was and to get another look at that license plate. The business was an accounting office and I knew my mom worked for a company that did forensic accounting. The Georgia plates on the Lincoln had a Cobb County sticker on it. Cobb County is a northern Atlanta suburb, the area my mom lived. It was difficult to believe my eyes, but it all added up. I'd been looking for a Priest and found my mom.

I wanted to make contact with her, but I didn't dare. I hadn't spotted anyone on her, but it was possible she was being followed. There was also the problem that my mom didn't like what I was doing. She wouldn't turn me in, but I didn't want to put her in that position. I guess if I'm being honest with myself, I didn't want to have her give me hell either. After all, she's my mom. So I forgot all about the Priest and left the area before I was spotted by a possible surveillance team on my mom.

The mistake that I did make was to mark the location of the office on my GPS map with a tag that said "Mom" and the date. That computer was later recovered by the FBI and they became convinced that my Mom was helping me. After I was captured they asked about my mom so I told them the true story of what happened that day. I don't blame them for not believing me. The story was too much of an impossibility to be believed, but it happened just this way.