In the early 1960’s I was in my mid-30's and working as a junior high school band director in Carpentersville IL,  a suburb 40 miles northwest of Chicago.  Like many music teachers I, for fun and extra income, played in a small combo for dances, parties, weddings, Bar Mitzvahs and what have you on weekends. No one in the band was a full-time performing musician.  One of the guys in the combo, the drummer, operated a "Private Investigator" business.  He specialized in what he called “Domestic Work,” which translated to “tailing” wandering wives or husbands for suspicious spouses who suspected their partner was up to something and wanted to find out for sure. He asked me if I’d be interested in doing a little surveillance on a wife whose husband thought was cheating. The husband needed to catch her in the act so he could get an uncontested divorce and full custody of their kids.  This was many years ago.  Divorces were not as easy to get as they are today.

I've always been "up" for a little adventure and this sounded like it would be exciting. plus and it would mean a little extra money for me us.  I quickly accepted.  The "case" he put me on was a wife whose husband thought she was spending a lot of unaccounted time away from hearth and home.   I was to follow her and report onwhat I  saw her doing.   I tailed her once or twice and found nothing unusual happening.    But along about the third time I tailed her she must have had plans and I had obviously gotten too close.  She suddenly did a tire screeching “U” turn right in the highway and took off like a cannonball.  She had "made me."   I had a “family car” at the time; a white, 1963 Ford Station Wagon, with an automatic transmission behind a six cylinder engine.  She was driving some kind of muscle car.  There was no chance of my catching her let alone keep up with her if she wanted to outrun me.

The husband was so desperate to get the goods on her that he spent a small fortune mounting and  financing what was almost a military operation to catch her in the act.  He hired three Private Investigators (including me) to tail her on the ground and another in an airplane to keep track of her.  The airplane spotter followed her car to a motel in Lake Geneva WI. 

We three “P.I’s” converged on the motel.  The "boss" contacted the local police and owner of the motel to tell them what we were up to.  They stood back and watched while "the boss" busted the door open.  At that point I remember one of the local cops saying, "Well, there's breaking and entering."  As he said that the husband and all three of we PI’s burst into the room and caught the guy "right in the saddle."  He jumped up naked as a newborn and fled to the bathroom.  We stepped back and let the husband confront his wife - naked in bed.  Among other things that took place in the next few minutes the wife, standing beside the bed with a sheet wrapped around her, focused a venomous hate look onto me and said, "There's that son of a bitch in the white station wagon.”  That's when I knew for sure she had "made me" on my previous assignment to tail her.  As for “Breaking and Entering,” when the cops saw what was going on and heard why they saw no reason to do anything.  

A few months later I was in court testifying as to what I observed as a witness for the husband.  The judge granted the divorce and gave the guy full custody of their kids. 

But . . . there is an astonishing “kicker” to this story.   Not too many months later the husband apparently forgave her.  He took her back.  They again became husband and wife. 

As for “Breaking and Entering,” well,  when the cops saw what was going on and heard why, they saw no reason to do anything.

As for me - I left the scene, got into my white Ford station wagon and drove home; grateful and absolutely positive that my wife - despite many problems and I am sure, disappointments in our marriage - had been a faithful wife and good mother to our (then) three kids.   Today, well over 50 years later we are still together.  There have been many problems, but one that has never overshadowed our marriage is infidelity.