I love march. It’s still wintery but there are those brief moments of spring every so often. People are experiencing spring fever, too. I can tell by the shorts and sandals coming onboard our flights.
I think our everyday lives provide plenty of material to be woven into our writing at a later date. Some of my memories may be a little different since I was the daughter of a photojournalist who brought home all kinds of stories, which he delighted in telling, usually at our dinner table.
In the late 1950s, I was still an elementary school student when my father received an assignment to cover President Dwight Eisenhower’s review of the Mayport Carrier Basin located at the mouth of the St. Johns River near Jacksonville, FL. The president’s visit would not have been complete without a visit aboard the USS Saratoga, pride of America’s carrier fleet at the height of the Cold War. Of course all the naval officers and enlisted men were on deck in their full dress uniforms, and top political and civic leaders were present for the occasion in abundance. Rocco Morabito, another photographer also employed by The Florida Times Union in Jacksonville covered this event with my father.
This was in the day of the Graphlex camera with its popping flashbulbs. My father was standing on one side of the president’s path and Morabito was opposite him. That’s when it happened. One of my father’s flashbulbs exploded. Secret Service agents quickly grabbed my father and escorted him from the event, erroneously thinking he had attempted to assassinate the president.
As I understand it, the picture my father took showed Ike standing tall while his Secret Service agents apparently ducked. Well, he had served as Supreme Commander of all Allied forces in Europe—one of the most powerful generals in world history. What would you expect?
Though I don’t have the picture my father took (family legend has it that it was confiscated by Secret Service; another version is that was sold to Life magazine), I do have this picture taken by Morabito showing my father just before the flashbulb exploded.
Needless to say, my dad was delighted by the entire event. He had a great sense of humor as well as a great respect for Ike as a historical military leader and President of the United States. In later years, I would hear the stories and see corresponding pictures of my father with President Ford, Johnny Carson, Paul Harvey, Lee Trevino, Elvis Presley, George Hamilton, Jack Nicholas, and Anwar Sadat, just to name a few. In fact, I’m in one or two of those pictures myself.
If you are a writer, possibly one of the richest sources of material at your disposal can be found in your own family’s stories.