funnyman

Ok, so today I went to a model railroad show(trolleys in particular) hoping to a)get some nice shots, and b)meet some cool people, which are always in abundance at these events. So I shoot a couple rolls of b+w film of the layouts from angles where you can't tell its a layout, which the modelers tend to go rabid for. At that point it was about 5, so a bunch of the guys decided to go to On The Border, a local tex-mex joint, to grab some grub. So i ended up sitting next to this older guy(mid-70's i would assume), and we started to talk over a couple margaritas, and ended up on the topic of photography. He told me about a friend of his who was a photographer in the 60's, and a couple other people that he knew. Then he dropped the bomb. Out of nowhere, he mentioned that he grew up next door to Margaret Burke-White. I did a double take,
because that was just too crazy. I asked him if it was THE Margaret Burke-White, and he said "oh, you know who she is?" At this point, my heart was pumping pretty fast. Margaret Burke-White is considered one of the greatest photographers of all time, and being a photographer, this was all that much more exciting. He started telling me all these stories about Margaret, and how later in life, she discovered she had Parkinson's. Being her next door neighbor, his mother took care of MBW after she was diagnosed. This man, Melvin Orr was his name, actually helped her learn how to walk again on her own. As if that wasn't amazing enough, it gets better. He started to tell a story about Burke-White. I just had to write this one down. Apparently, one day, Margaret locked herself out of her house and couldn't get back in. To a normal person, this would mean a call to the locksmith or a broken window. Not to Burke-White. Knowing her brother was the only other person who had a key to her house, and not wanting to break in and damage her home, she got on the phone to Long Island, NY, where her brother lived. She, however, lived a good distance away somewhere in connecticut. Well, it turns out she was in luck. He was an amateur pilot, and happened to have a small plane handy. So, he took his set of keys, drove to the airport, got in his plane and proceeded to fly to connecticut. He then flew over her house and DROPPED the keys into her backyard, allowing her to get back into the house safe and sound. It was just one of those things that could never happen today. People are too self-oriented. This was just one of the most amazing stories I had ever heard, and I felt if I didn't share it, it would be a sin greater than murder. I still can't believe it happened. I wrote it down on a napkin at the restaurant, and I will probably keep the napkin as a memento of the time I happened to meet the man who taught Margaret Burke-White how to walk.