The Original Photoadventure. I did not make up this title just for this book. It came about during college as a student in the School of Journalism at the University of Missouri-Columbia, where, as excellent luck would have it, I became close friends with another photojournalism student who shared my affinity for photographing people in their element. Wendy Carlson was and still is beautiful, smart, full of energy and easy-going. As single college students, we had at least a minimal interest in each other beyond the academic pursuits we shared. Wendy and I shared a close friendship that grew out of an ordeal, rather, a strange situation, that we shared in mid-March of 1982. I know I think of it as a true adventure that happened when Wendy and I decided to hop in her car one day, and head out of town to take pictures of a semi-obscure event south of Columbia in Rolla, Mo. We had heard that the students at the University of Missouri-Rolla-now the Missouri University of Science and Technology-held an annual St. Patrick's Day celebration unlike anything, anywhere. It was, we had heard, a giant beer fest. Wild and crazy. To this day, Rolla is known for its annual Irish heritage celebration, but this student gathering sounded weird, since the beer-drinking age in Missouri was 21 at the time, much to my surprise when I transferred to Mizzou as a 19-year-old. Why would the University allow such a gathering? There would be drunken, puking, backward-speaking, dazed and confused students there, for sure. Wendy and I certainly were psyched to witness the spectacle of public stupidity and alcohol abuse. So, into her small car we went, with plenty of hand-rolled black-and-white Kodak Tri-X film and our Canon cameras. The event did not disappoint. There were wonderfully colorful activities such as the "Hop, Skip and Puke" competition and the ever-popular (albeit dangerous) "Drunken Lawn-Mowing" contest. My favorite was a putrid attraction called "Alice." This was a metal structure about half the size of a trash dumpster, about 4-feet tall, and lined with heavy black plastic bags and protective styrofoam on the edges. It had been filled with water, beer, urine and other liquids, and a few solids (a few stray sandwiches, underclothes, puke, etc.). A slow, steady seepage could be seen coming from the foul-smelling swill. The goal with the Alice attraction: Jump in and stay in as long as possible. Whoever was able to remain there the longest won the prize of being known as the person who stayed in the longest. (Woo-hoo.) Not many volunteered to jump in. But some were on the lookout for college students drunk and primed for being tossed into Alice. Drunken onlookers or passers-by suddenly became projectiles who were abducted, lifted, kicking and screaming as they were hauled toward Alice. After being awkwardly tossed into the sewer-like soup, the baptized would desperately climb out as quickly as a cat dropped into water, screaming and walking stiffly as if covered in pukepaste. Photo tip: This is where having a long lens on the camera can be a big help. With a 70-200mm zoom lens, I was able to take pictures from 50 feet away instead of the five feet away I first attempted. Neither Wendy nor I wanted to get slimed. A couple of goofballs tried to lift me. Thankfully sober, I backed off quickly. They found a less agile drunken candidate, and he flew into Alice head-first, coming up quickly for air, then tossing his cookies after crawling out onto the muddy grass. It had rained a little, and it was cool, so that helped the poor sucker a little, I guess. Alas, I got some Alice juice splashed onto my jeans. Wendy was clicking away near a barrier that held back students watching the mayhem. And to think that this was not the main event of our Photoadventure! No siree. This was just the start of something beautif . . . I mean, weird. It was already a true adventure. I was hanging out with a beautiful girl and taking pictures of college students who were so obviously less intelligent than me since I was observing instead of participating. A thought that all photojournalists have many times in their careers: "Good Lord, thank you for keeping me on this side of the camera." The real adventure-as most adventures-begins when an unscripted thing happens. ©P. Kevin Morley What happened next? Wendy's car died. While driving on Interstate 63, just north of Rolla, she rolled her ever-slowing car onto the shoulder, telling me that she just had it serviced. She and I were both out-of-state students, so our cars took a lot of wear and tear. I did what most men do in a situation like this: After Wendy popped the hood, I looked at the engine, not knowing at all what I was looking at. Hmmmm. Was it out of gas? No. Were all of the plug thingies attached to the other thingies? It all seemed OK to me. It was beyond our knowledge. Just a few minutes after the car's death, a loud, beat-up, rusty dark-blue Chevy rolled up and parked behind us on the shoulder. Thinking back on that car reminds me of the humorous poster of a missing mangy dog with three legs, one eye, no tail and one ear, who answers to "Lucky." "Hey, ya'll," said a very stocky, stubbly-faced man about 40 years old, with baggy jeans, a ball cap, a worn untucked, plaid shirt, and a mouth full of chewing tobacco. He spit a wad of juice onto I-63, waddled up to us and said, "Sheeyat. Car broke, huh?" Yes, Wendy responded. The engine would not turn over. The man took off his baseball cap and poked his head under the hood. He made a few low, grunting, "man-thinking" sounds as he tried to figure out why the engine wouldn't work. Wendy and I looked at each other hopefully, but also with a little doubt that this guy would be able to assist us. "It's yer curl," he announced, as he rubbed his hands on his shirt. "The what?" I asked him. "The curl. The curl. It helps ta make the spork fer the engine ta start," he said. "Oh, you mean the coil?" I asked. "That what I said," he replied. "The curl." He offered to drive us to KMart to try and locate a curl. Wendy, petrified, wasn't sure what to say. I certainly wasn't going to leave her there and there was no way she was going to go with this guy, along with another skinnier version of him in the car, to KMart. We decided to take him up on his offer, but we would stick together, and we would bring our cameras with us. Off we went. After a wild U-turn, the creaky car headed south toward Rolla with me in the front seat with our roly-poly driver and Wendy in the back with the skinny guy. He wore a stocking cap, had about four days of stubble, pimples evenly-spaced on his face and a few good teeth. I smelled beer. And B.O. He introduced himself as Dave. He was quiet and mostly gawked at Wendy. I could tell she was getting creeped-out by him. We were soon in the parking lot of what basically was the center of the universe to the two dudes in the car. We all got out of the vehicle and went to the automotive care area, with Dave mostly staring at Wendy the whole time. She and I stayed close. The driver-whose name I cannot recall-looked through the coils available and announced that they didn't have the one that Wendy's engine needed. There were no other automotive parts places open, so we suddenly were faced with a problem. Ninety miles away from our college homes with no way of getting back, no place to stay, and Wendy's car on the side of the road. That's when we got an unexpected offer: "Why don't ya'll stay at our house?" Dave asked. Now, the word "petrified" comes from the Latin word "petrus," which means "stone." "Turned to stone" is how I would describe Wendy's reaction to Dave's kind invitation. Had he not drooled a bit while asking, and had he not been staring a hole through Wendy's shirt for the past hour, she might not have been so horrified at staying at the home of 30-something Dave and his buddy. Sensing Wendy's doomsday reaction, I quickly mentioned to our saviors that a friend of mine lived at the University campus there in Rolla. (I was completely lying, of course.) I asked if they could drive us to the campus where I could make a phone call. They agreed. I found a phone outside of a dormitory there and called my roommate, Pong, in Columbia. I knew he was acquainted with a student or two in Rolla and figured he might suggest that I call one of them to ask about staying over for the night. Alas, Pong was not at home. Out of desperation, I asked a few students in the lobby of the dorm if there was any way Wendy and I could crash there for the night. I asked probably the two most geeky students on the entire campus, since most of the "cool" ones were probably still puking somewhere. I explained the situation to them: We would be spending possibly the last night of our lives with dentally challenged, zombie-like backwoods boys unless we stayed in the dorm. Nope. No dice. Their RA would not approve. I went back to the car with no options. I spoke quietly with Wendy about our predicament, and she and I decided we would probably, hopefully, be all right, with enough praying. We told our new friends that...
