I was on the way to the cafe where I do Tarot card readings, when I passed a newspaper vending machine. Normally, I don't bother paying money for our local rag; and when I do, I rarely get it from one of those mechanical bandits. But that day, I made an exception.
Through the glass, I'd seen a face on the paper's front page that looked oddly familiar. So, I fumbled in my pocket for a Loonie and pumped it in.
"Naw," I told myself, as I walked and had a closer look. "Couldn't be!"
But the owner of the cafe quickly changed my mind.
"See the paper?" he asked.
"That's the 'necker'," said the girl from the winery next door. She and her sister called him that, because he and his Greek girlfriend were always holding hands or nuzzling each other while they waited for a table.
And that's when I found myself saying what everybody does, when someone they know is involved in a front page news story: "But he seemed like such a nice guy."
And, as far as most people who knew him were concerned, he was.
Adam Leon (or Yavuz Berke, as he was known when he lived in Turkey) was an articulate, mild-mannered 31-yr-old who had migrated to Canada from Istanbul after both his parents were killed in a car crash in 2002. When I met him at the cafe, he was enrolled in Confederation College's Aviation Program.
He seemed anything but religious or political and took our ribbing about things Muslim with the same good humour in which it was delivered. It might have been that he was too much in love to care. It certainly looked that way.
One Friday he and his girlfriend failed to appear for their weekly Veggie Burger, but nobody thought anything about it. Another week went by. Again, they failed to show.
Then came the headlines.
My Dad flew in WWII and always kept a private license for the occasional bit of recreational flying. And I'd been puddle-jumping with him since I was old enough to wear a seatbelt. So, when I read that Adam had helped himself to one of the College's Cessna 172s and headed across Lake Superior for the U.S., I must admit my first thoughts were for his safety not for anyone on the ground.
Apparently, he'd broken up with his girlfriend. And old problems with depression quickly took over. He decided that he'd end it all. But rather than take pills or shoot himself, he'd jump in a plane, head south and let the American Air Force do it for him.
It was hardly a sensible choice. But then there are those who'd say, "Neither is love!"
He barely got to Michigan's Upper Peninsula when two F-16s were scrambled to intercept him. All I could think of was that episode of "The Simpsons" when Sideshow Bob stole a model of the Wright Brother's plane and the jet pilots chasing him had to get out and walk to stay in contact.
Still, it couldn't have been much fun for people in Wisconsin and points south who didn't know it was self-destruction not fanaticism that sent Adam off into the Wild Blue Yonder.
Nevertheless, the authorities might have told them that one small Cessna, rapidly running low on fuel, was hardly a threat to anybody but its pilot. They evacuated the Capitol Building in Madison. But even if he'd been of a mind to fly into the Dome, the Cessna would have simply bounced off.
He did manage to get all the way to Missouri where, when he couldn't find an airport, he picked a deserted country road and set his craft down with the kind of skill that would have earned him high marks back at the College.
He climbed out of his barely-damaged craft and proceeded to walk to a nearby restaurant where he called the cops to turn himself in, then calmly sat and sipped a Gatorade until they got there.
This monumentally stupid suicide plan earned Leon some grave personal embarrassment, a 2-year prison term and no more chance of Veggie Burgers until 2011.
Now, I know there are soreheads screaming for a longer sentence. But that says more about them, I think, than about Adam.
And there has been some good to come out of all this.
The College is paying more attention to aviation students in personal distress. And they no longer leaves keys in the ignition of their planes at the airport.
So, rest easy, America! Thunder Bay is no longer a threat.
No comments:
Post a Comment