Noah here, back again…
Hope you’re all having a nice Sunday.
Like I said I in my last post Sunday “why” post, I never made the call to my lawyer, because I didn’t have one, but what I did do is almost trick myself into thinking I could have a normal life again.
I was making good money at the sugar plant. I was in my daughter’s life. I was almost staying sober, and I almost thought I had a future.
I really did like my job at the plant, to be honest. And I could have seen myself working there for a while if circumstances would had been different.
I think I was just enjoying having a normal life though, a change from all the chaos that was my life no more then 4-6 months prior.
Then came D-day.
May 2011, when an unfamiliar face, someone from the plant, came and asked if I was Noah Bergland.
When I said I was, they said the higher ups wanted to see me. And it happened to be on a day when someone on the rail car, ran through a closed track in the yard, so I thought it pertained to that.
I asked if it was and he said he had no idea and he only knew that they wanted to talk to me.
I wasn’t even thinking it could have been something different until they brought me into the office asked me to take a seat in a chair with my back to the door. Ugh.
I waited about 60 seconds and then the door opened and I heard a much more familiar voice, it was the concerned Roseau alumni, who I had spoken to back in 2010 back on my daughter’s grandpa’s front porch a few months prior, when he told me…
“Mr. Bergland, times up.”
I laugh now about the cheesiness of the situation as I write this but I wasn’t laughing then nor am I laughing about the situation in general now. But it was a pretty good line. He also had two FBI agents with him. It was bad. They escorted me off the premises and it was shift change so everyone was leaving and coming, and it was embarrassing.
A select few at the plant knew I had bad news eventually coming, but I don’t think even they believed me when I told them actually what was transpiring, but they do now.
I wrote in a previous post that I got out on pre-trial (because of my sister’s wedding) however, which still amazes me today, but you want to know something else, if i hadn’t I would have been getting out somewhere in the next few months. To be clear- if I wouldn’t have asked to stay out until then and I wouldn’t have gotten out on pre-trial, I’d be free now.
But I still don’t regret a day of any of it.
Because even though… in the next several posts… I will be revealing I wasn’t as clean as I perceived to be.
I still think there was a lot of good I accomplished with my time out, then there are a handful of screw ups and slip ups I wish I could overshadow.
Best thing is, bottom line – I got to know my daughter better even though she doesn’t remember a single day of it, I got to be part of my sister’s wedding, which means I made it to both of my siblings weddings, which is probably my third biggest accomplishment after my daughter and my college degree.
Ya, I know I haven’t accomplished a lot, luckily I am only 33. 🙂
I got to start the building one of my greatest relationships with my new best friend, my mom. So, I don’t make the same mistake again that I did with my dad.
Lastly, I got to prove to myself that I can live a normal life. I just needed to work out the last of the kinks, where I actually though I needed to use drugs to have fun.
This last piece is where the story is headed…
It’s going to be a lifelong journey so please try to keep an open mind….
The worst is over- which was 2011.
But it is rare when someone’s recovery is cold turkey and squeaky clean till the end.
So, let’s continue…I got out and went back to the sugar plant for another month or so until they rounded up all the troops (my defendants) and were ready for the media.
I had a one day heads up when they called me at the plant and a call was forwarded through to me, it was someone from a local newspaper in Fargo and he wanted to know if the indictment affected my employment, I said it had not, but asked when the paper was coming out.
He replied, tomorrow.
And I told him all I can say is, I am fighting the charges and he would have to call back tomorrow to find out if it had affected my employment.
The next morning I woke up around 9am as I didn’t have to work until 4pm. I had a missed calls and texts from many people, one of which was my daughter’s grandpa and he said, “your face is all over the news.”
I also had a few missed calls from the plant, and I returned them and I was told by my boss to call HR. I asked do I still have a job? And he said, “I don’t know.”
I called HR and they informed me they are not willing to employ me until I am acquitted of the charges. Well, as you know now, that time never came. Because here, I am, 6 years later still sitting in prison.
I called my boss back and told him I was fired and he said to keep his info and to call him when it was all over if I wanted a job.
I probably won’t have one, but those words meant a lot more than he probably knows.
From the inside,
Noah
