Five photos I wish I had taken

When our daughter was four years old she decided she wanted to be an Indian Chieftan. We went to a nearby turkey plant and picked up a few hundred turkey tail feathers, took them home, dyed them in many colors, and sewed them into a magnificent headdress that spread out behind her. She attracted much attention as she paraded up and down the street in front of our home pretending to be the real thing. I always planned to take a picture but never did. She does not even remember that headdress.

I never took a picture of the barn on the old home place. It is gone now. It contained so many memories of climbing the ladder to and playing in the loft, carrying grain and water to the animals, feeling the warmth upon stepping inside on a cold winter's night, and smelling that distinctive odor of horses and cows and pigs and cats. I have no visual memory of that barn.

I stood on the footbridge near Pioneer Park and was enthralled by the lovely sunset on the Chena River. A flock of ducks flew into the air and there was a perfect mirror reflection in the rose-colored water of those ducks in the air. Even though my camera was in my hand I was too entranced to snap the shutter until the scene had passed. I have an ordinary picture of a beautiful brilliant rose sunset on the Chena River.

I didn't take a picture of squeamish 22-year-old Jessica in a blood and clamp situation in Indonesia as she held his head and helped remove a tooth from a man who had come into the clinic for help. We have no record of the highlight of her trip.

Denali saw atop a cloud in a pink morning sun as we flew by. My camera was in my carry on but I could not get to it. Even though I never took the picture, it will never fade from my memory.