[Leica] Re: Getting close and discreet

[drodgers@nextlink.net]

Jim

You wrote:

>> About '82 or '83, a lifeguard had just pulled a little girl out of
the water and done CPR for close to ten minutes.  The ambulance had pulled
away.   A news photographer walked up to him, told him the little girl
didn't make it, stuck a camera in his face and shot the picture.  Then he
told the lifeguard he didn't know if she was OK or not.  The lifeguard
punched the photographer through the camera, thus proving it is possible to
break a Nikon F2.<<

I can understand how the lifeguard felt. Normally I'm calm, but I would have
done the same thing. In the summer of 1975 I was a lifeguard at large resort in
California. I was a collegiate swimmer and that was my summer job. I took July
4th off that year to play in a water polo tournament with some friends. A little
boy drowned in the lake that day. I was the head lifeguard. I still feel guilty
about taking the day off.

A week later there remained a pall hanging over the lifeguards. A lady came
running down to the beach in panic screaming that her little boy was missing.
Immediately we got everyone out of the water and started doing a water search.
We swam patterns close together, slipping through the murk. Swimming blindly,
knowing that you may bump into a submerged little body at any moment, is a
feeling you don't soon forget. The stress level increased and hope decreased as
time went on.

This story had a happy ending. After searching for 45 minutes I went to update
the mother. I found her sitting in a picnic area calm and collected. I told her
that we still had not found anything. She proceeded to tell me that her little
boy turned up in the playground a few minutes after she notified us he was
missing. I was so relieved that all I said was, "next time notify us immediately
when you find him."

Dave