By Phil Roberts, 5-15-23
Rainbow Bridge is a spectacular landmark in the Utah desert right next to the shore of Lake Powell, the lake formed in the late 1950s and early 1960s by the still-controversial Glen Canyon Dam. One can reach the site by boat or via a long trail from Page, Ariz. But If anyone offers to fly you there and, perhaps, fly under the arch, politely, but firmly turn them down.
In the year after my Marine Corps hitch ended, I tried several jobs in southern California, but none were really to my liking. My brother David, a student at the University of Arizona in journalism, told me of a summer editor’s job opening at Page where he had graduated from high school some years before. (He later won numerous press awards as publisher/founding editor of the Medicine Bow Post in Wyoming and retired after another distinguished career as a journalism professor). The editor/publisher of the Page paper preferred to spend summers in his native Canada, so the summer editor would have wide discretion in running the weekly. (That would be an important consideration for any temporary editor in the summer before Watergate). The editor, all of the staff of five (and a part-time photographer) and I hit it off well and I was hired. (Unlike brother David, I was no threat, having never taken a journalism class in my life). Two ad sales people doubled as the paste-up staff. (These we the early days of cold type, the linotype machines permanently consigned to the scrap yard). The two young reporters/ad salespeople learned quickly that they joined the rest of us on the paper-tape-driven Justowriters, the wax machines, and proofreading, well into what they referred to as “the wasted Wednesday night” each week, leaving time to load the box of page-proofs onto the 2 a.m., bus for the 125 miles to the Flagstaff printing plant.
Oh, did I mention the part-time photographer who took pictures but also reigned over the darkroom? He was our only physically disabled employee. Blind. He could see a pinhole of light with one eye. Among the many skills he taught me was how to “feel” the image appearing in the developer in the darkroom and “catching” it just right for a prize-winning image every time. (It’s a forgotten skill today).
Also, he operated the curio and postcard concession at the national recreation site headquarters/visitors’ center just above Glen Canyon Dam, the above bridge for traffic passing right over the Colorado River (on one side) and Lake Powell on the other. (The sharp right turn onto the road, bound for the closest boat ramp at Wahweap Marina, was the stuff of legend. One talkative store manager, with two buddies in the pickup cab, didn’t notice when the sharp turn caused his unsecured boat, on the boat trailer behind the truck, flew off partially blocking traffic. The would-be boaters only discovered the loss after backing up to the boat ramp some five miles down the road).
The photographer told me one day that he had rented an airplane, complete with a pilot, in order to update some aerial postcard scenes. He asked if I wanted to go along. “You can bring your camera and get some nice aerial shots for the paper,” he suggested. I accepted the invitation. What possibly could go wrong?
I grabbed my old but reliable viewfinder camera and we set off. (This was long before the days of the digital camera and the paper–and the acting editor–didn’t have the money for a great Canon, Nikon or other SLR).
I climbed into the back seat of the aging Piper Cub while the photographer again got reassurance that he could prop open the door and hang the camera outside for the trickiest, unobstructed shots. Off we hurdled, off the runway of Page airport, where the runway end was a 100-foot drop to open water of the lake. Airborne without incident. We first took a swing over the marina for some potential advertising shots and then off to Rainbow Bridge before working our way back toward the home base as the sun was setting.
It became obvious that the blind photographer was having trouble with distant shots. He had the annoying habit of peppering the pilot with questions as to what angle he should be holding the camera.
I heard the pilot shout over the wind that Rainbow Bridge was just about to appear to the right side of the plane. “Get ready!” he warned. “It will be in view only for a few minutes.”
I could see the blind photographer with the camera at the ready and I pressed the viewfinder eyepiece to my left eye. Just as I heard both cameras click almost simultaneously, the pilot abruptly pulled the plane up. I looked over to see the sweat flowing from his forehead. Just then, he exclaimed in a near shout, “Damn you guys have guts! We practically grazed the top of Rainbow Bridge with our wheels!”
The blind man shrugged; I re-checked the eyepiece on my rangefinder camera. “We got pretty close,” I acknowledged, as nonchalantly as I could while shuddering in stark terror what had almost happened. The rest of the pictures were shot from a healthy distance away and we landed back home without incident.
I learned two lessons from the experience: 1) a blind photographer can teach you much about how best to see and 2) don’t, under any circumstances, forget the viewfinders’ adage: ”Caution: items may be closer than they appear.”