I’m from morocco, and have been married for 2 years in U.S. it all started one frigid April Monday morning. i heard knocking at the door, it was the immigration. i was picked up and spent 2 days in detention. i married my wife for love and companionship, never thought about filling my paper work for residency. although i was released, i have to deal now with a bracelet that limits my ability of having a normal life. now, i can’t even provide for my wife, i’m out of jail, however, i’m jailed at home. this has been going for almost 7 months now and nothing seems to change even though i started the paperwork process as soon as i was released. it’s funny because many people who married for residency, got they paperwork in less than 4 months after the marriage. is this my destiny? my luck? or a test?
Posts Tagged outrageous fortune
Fake Freedom
Nov 10
A few years ago I was producing a documentary about the famed Route 66. We called up Dodge and asked them to loan us a Viper to drive from Santa Monica to Chicago – the entire route. To our amazement Dodge said yes and gave us a beautiful, brand new gun-metal gray Viper. Low and sleek, the car begged to be driven hard and fast. The crew took it out on the road for two weeks, filmed it day and night, drove it faster than they were willing to tell me and made it to Chicago. It became a character in the movie. We returned the car to Dodge in Chicago and never saw it again.
A few weeks later I realized I needed the car back for some additional shots. We’d hired Peter Fonda to do some on-camera introductions and wanted the same car in the background. To my dismay I found out that the gray car Dodge had supplied was a special model – only a few had been made. There was no way I was going to get a matching vehicle.
Feeling doomed, I did the only thing I could think of – I went out to lunch.
Once a week I visited a place in Los Angeles called Bombay Cafe. All I could think about was how dumb I had been to let that one-of-a-kind gray Viper go. As I was going into the restaurant I noticed that there was a new business across the street. It was an exotic car rental place and in the window was a gun-metal gray Dodge Viper – exactly the kind of car I needed. I dashed across the street, burst through the door and asked the salesmen if the Viper was for rent. He said yes. I said I needed it tomorrow. He said that would cost me $400. I said no problem. Done, done and done.
I’ve never rented a car so fast in my life nor solved a problem so effortlessly. I’ve always wondered if it was because I was thinking so hard about needing a gray Dodge Viper that one appeared as if my magic, right across the street from my lunch spot.
Keypad Code
Oct 30
The production of my memoir has also required frequent trips to the “Copy Center.”
I was there, copying photos, and had some color ones to do. But the color-copier had a lock-out keypad, for which I lacked the code, and when I looked down the 30′ counter toward the Helpful Assistant, saw him with 2 “Little-Old-Ladies” who looked as though they’d “tie him up” for an hour!
And I had an imminent appointment, for which I’d soon be late…
So I “Focused Inwardly”, intensely, silently asking: “What’s the code to this thing?”
“7193″ came from my heart.
I punched it in, made the copies ( paid for them! ) and departed.
In 1977, while working a summer job for a trash hauler in downstate Illinois, I was put in charge of clearing out an attic storeroom of the old Edgar County Courthouse.
The contents of the room consisted of dozens of boxes of old trial materials and the work product of attorneys, judges, and stenographers dating as far back as the first half of the 1800s.
Everything was to be taken out and shredded according to the established record destruction protocol of the day. No one bothered to go through any of the dusty old boxes, since the matters to which they pertained were all adjudicated, settled, decided, etc. and the parties involved had all died long ago.
On a hunch, being a bit of a history buff, I spent a little time with the oldest boxes and discovered three trial briefs handwritten and signed by A. Lincoln.
It was a moment of truth for me, since these were potentially worth a lot of money, and I was completely authorized to dispose of these items along with everything else in the room. However, my conscience prevailed and I brought them to show to the Clerk of Court.
The disposal job was immediately suspended and the State Historical Library was notified. Experts from the state and the University of Illinois soon set up a temporary examining station at the courthouse to go through everything proposed to be thrown out. Other items were found to have historical significance, but nothing else of Lincoln’s was found.
What did I get? My name in the local paper and a hearty handshake from the chairman of the Edgar County Board.
You know what? This probably didn’t change my life at all. It just feels like it did.
