Miracle Fishing

It's funny how a random thought or action can lead me down a path, sometimes to the future, in this instance to the past.

Someone sent me a photo of themself, holding a piece of paper with their name and date on it, in front of a blown-out tire, to prove to me that their tire was indeed ruined on the day in question. Okay, it was my son, asking for money to fix yet another tire. He goes through about five a month.

I texted him back that I appreciated the proof of life. I first heard that term from Tom Hargrove when he was telling me about his Colombian kidnapping, and that the kidnappers would send a picture to the family of the victim holding a recent newspaper to prove they were still alive. 

I did an internet search of "Tom Hargrove proof of life" to get a photo to send back to my son, and I came across a link to a documentary titled "Miracle Fishing: Kidnapped Abroad", produced by Miles Hargrove, Tom's son.

I used to be in contact with Tom and I wrote a few articles about him. He was a fascinating person, brilliant, really. His work with rice and its life-saving properties was on the scale of miracles. 

That time in Tom's life has been thoroughly pored over in books, interviews and feature film, but this documentary brings it all together. It is the overlay needed to completely understand and fathom what the family went through to get Tom back.

I watched it for free on Plex, a streaming service I found through Roku. It looks like it's also available on Prime Video, Vudu and Redbox. I highly recommend it.