The Great Camera Caper

When I was young, probably about 7 or 8, we spent an entire summer riding old-timey trains. You see, my dad had a huge fetish for a old locomotives and as a consequence, I spent two or so months in cabins filled with smoke, sitting on stiff wooden seats, shifting uncomfortably as the long rides bore down on my attentiveness.

I decided to take some pictures to pass the time. My parents were rather high level amateur photographers, complete with expensive SLRs and a dozen or so lenses. As we rounded a turn up on a hill, I took the camera out and snapped a few pictures from the moving train's window. The train hit a bump. The $300 lens fell from the window leaving me stunned and anxious to tell my parents. Swallowing my pride, I told my parents. We agreed to come back that evening and look.

As dusk approached, we climbed through locked fences and started to scour the track where I lost the lens. Unfortunately for us, the large black lens fit right in with the pieces of coal which littered the tracks. Finally, after an hour or so, we found the lens, fully intact and undamaged, beside the rails.

I can only imagine what punishment I would have received if we hadn't found that lens!