Built From Scratch, Japanese Edition

This is the Japanese edition of "Built From Scratch," which I wrote with The Home Depot founders, Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank.

Mirror image (St. Petersburg Times)

By BOB ANDELMAN
Published May 2, 2006
St. Petersburg Times

I could tell by his expression that something was bothering the man I had hired to clear some backyard brush. I couldn't follow a lot of what he said in his thick Jamaican accent, but one message kept coming through: "Sami? Sami?"

No, I said. Bob.

Finally, I produced my driver's license as proof of my true identity. He didn't seem convinced, but at least he stopped asking.

Months later, he was back to do more work: "Sami?"

Not again.

The first time it happened was in 2002. A friend saw a picture of former University of South Florida professor and alleged terrorism supporter Sami Al-Arian and did a double take because he thought it was me. He thought the resemblance was funny. I didn't.

Not that time, or the second, third or 100th time.

The more attention Al-Arian's case got in the media, the more often it happened. Even I could see why: The wire-rim glasses, classic bald head, the shape of the ears and, more particularly, the way we shaved our salt-and-pepper beards were all eerily similar. We're even close in age; Al-Arian is 47, I'm 46.

Al-Arian's case has affected my ability to travel freely, too. No one ever looked twice at me in an airport until Al-Arian's face started making the front page. Suddenly I was getting extra security checks, being pulled aside for extra wanding, questioning and delays. I was never strip-searched, but I always wondered if that might be coming. The hassles finally relented when I bought a pair of funky blue plastic-frame glasses that looked nothing like the wire frames and oval lenses Al-Arian and I apparently both preferred.

Curiously, it didn't matter to anyone that Al-Arian had been in jail for three years on charges that he raised money that went to terrorist organizations.

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