Doug;

A few years ago I went to the Presidio with my wife for a hike and to take some pictures. The camera I took was my 6x7 cm negative Pentax, which weighs 7 pounds without a lens or viewfinder. My Tripod is a Star D, which is very heavy and just right for me (I am 6’7”). I was on a cliff at the North side of the Presidio, on one of the very narrow trails. This is on the Golden Gate Side and is a drop of about 150 feet into the Golden Gate. It was very windy (about 30 to 40 knots) and I set up my tripod for a shot and a gust of wind lifted the camera, tripod and all off the cliff. I grabbed it and caught it in mid air. A Park Ranger saw what happen and came to me. He said many people have fallen off the trail into the water below, and told me when he saw the wind catch my camera and lift it into the air, that is where his love of photography would end.

We were on one of the tour boats that tourists (and myself) love to take a tour of the San Francisco Bay, when a Baptist Minister introduced himself. We began talking and I was giving him some of the details of the things we were seeing. Within the Presidio is an area known as Chrissy Field, which was a small airfield which was used by the Army. I mentioned the field was used by Jimmy Doolittle and his Raiders, to train for the attack on Tokyo, April 1942. The airfield is about the same length as was the Air Craft Carrier that was used, so it was perfect for training. No one had ever taken off with a bomber from an Air Craft Carrier before. The minister became very angry with me for telling him about this bit of history. It was so strange.

An aside about the Doolittle Raid (30 seconds over Tokyo), a little known fact was what happened to many Chinese that assisted the fliers that landed in China. The Chinese people helped the Americans at great cost to themselves. The particular incident I am referring to is the killing of about 580,000 Chinese civilians in an area which helped several American Fliers.

My father was a United States Marine Corp Advisor to the Chinese Army and took pictures of many events that occurred. The pictures make me sick even to this day. After the war my father would receive a special gift each year for Christmas, from a friend in China. It was a dark green porcelain container with a very sweet thick liquid inside. The container was a work of art. The last one he received was December 1949. We no longer heard from my dad's Chinese friend after that.

Another nice thing about the Presidio is that George Lucas Productions is setting up at that location. If you like to take pictures San Francisco and the surrounding area is hard to beat. We have lots of jokes about fog - like the one about "They give away free sun tan lotion at the Beach in San Francisco, so you will not get fog burn". It works! I have never gotten fog burn!

Tom