I got serious in photography in high school, joining a camera club, doing
lots of b+w and darkroom work. My father knew a guy who knew a guy who
worked in a camera store and one day out of the blue, my father presented me
with a bright shiny new slr -- an Exakta VXIIb. This tank of a camera
served me well for about 10 years.
Fast forward to graduating college and getting a job. I decided that my
tank, despite the Travemat metering pentaprism I picked up somewhere along
the way, was a bit outmoded. So, in 1976 or thereabouts I bought my first
Olympus, an OM-1n with a 50/1.8 lens. I was into backpacking those days,
and part of my choice of Oly was based on the need for a light yet durable
camera. I think part of Oly's advertising those days (and a mountaineering
book I had) included the fact that Oly's had made it up Everest and a few
other peaks, surviving the cold and being bounced around. I was sold. My
OM-1 served me well into the mid-1980s, when I decided to get automatic, and
traded up for an OM-2n, with a 50/1.4 lens. Just a few years later, 1985 or
thereabouts, having more money than I knew what to do with, I traded up for
an original OM-4. And a few years after that, sold the OM-4 and bought an
OM-4T (champagne) with the F280 flash.
I've never had more than a single body at a time, but my lens collection
includes the 24/2.8, 35/2.8, 50/1.4, 135/2.8 and the 35-70/3.5-4.5 zoom. I
also have T32 and F280 flashes, a couple of focus screens that I don't use
anymore (1-1, 1-13 I think), an off-camera hot shoe connector (for the OM-2,
which is sitting in the box), and a couple of other Oly odds and ends.
The OM-4T has an interesting history. I was living overseas in Pakistan and
had come home to NY for a vacation during the summer of 1987, with the
intention while I was home of buying the OM-4T, the F280 flash, and the
24/2.8 lens. I made a stop at 47th St Photo, bought the camera equipment,
and went further downtown to do some book shopping (Strand Book Store on
12th and Broadway). With the camera gear safely in the trunk of the car, we
went into the Strand for about a half hour. Come back with bags of books,
go to place them in the trunk and find the car had been broken into and all
the camera gear is missing, including all the receipts. No use going to the
police, since I couldn't prove anything was missing.
I decided not to make it a total loss, but to go back to 47th St Photo to
replace the body, and let the lens and flash go for now. We started driving
on a rather circuitous route back uptown, when what do we see walking up
Irving Place, but two low-lifes carrying our bags of camera gear and other
stuff. We circle around the block, luckily find two (!) police cars,
hurriedly explain the situation to them, and they go into action.
The cops circle the block with sirens and lights full blast, while the
low-lifes start to take off. Cops out of the cars, guns drawn. "Don't even
t'ink about it," they shout at the low-lifes in their best NY accents, then
the thieves are spread-eagled on the ground, and cuffed. The cops comment
on how stupid these guys are: they passed one of the major subway transfer
points and could have been anywhere in the city by the time we ran across
them on the street.
Back at the police station, we give our statements. Turns out these two
guys have a long history of this type of thing. But since it is a holiday
weekend (Saturday before July 4th) try as they might, the cops can't find a
district attorney who will allow the goods to be photographed and released
to me. So the goods go into the police lock-up, the low-lifes go into the
pokey, and I'm still out my stuff. Next Wednesday, I meet with the
assistant district attorney to discuss the case. The ADA declines to
prosecute, since the value of the photo gear and other stolen stuff is less
than $1000, just under the limit for grand theft, and the low-lifes would
walk anyway if they went to court. I agreed with the ADA that a couple of
days of buggery on Rikers Island was sufficient punishment. So, off I go to
stand before a judge (with about 100 other people) and in unison we swear
that our respective stolen goods were in fact ours, and we are given
releases to get our stuff back from the police.
I go back uptown to the police station, but they sent the stuff down to the
property clerk's office at headquarters. Go downtown to headquarters, but
they sent the stuff to the property warehouse in Queens. Go to deepest
darkest Queens (a warehouse district), find the police warehouse is closed
for lunch. Wait for the boys in blue to finish lunch, present my
credentials, and after a half hour wait, my stuff appears, is released to
me, and I get to finally play with it. But not until I subway back to
Manhattan to take the train back to Westchester County. Part of the irony
of the story is that I spent as much time with figures of authority as the
two low-lifes did, and they got fed!
As a postscript to the story, a few months after I returned to Pakistan, the
24/2.8 lens is stolen from my house -- an inside job by my cook who was
promptly ejected once the theft was discovered. The lens was replaced after
my return to the U.S. I still have the body and flash. And the tale to
tell.
end
Regards
Bruce Appelbaum
Yorktown Heights, New York
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