Focusing on Sarah

At last! Jan and I have had our 15 seconds of fame. We will do our best to share with you the picture which was on the web site of the Kansas City Star—along with fifteen others. As part of the early bird crowd which eventually swelled to 15,000, we were close enough to be included in one shot taken over Sarah’s shoulder. It’s okay though, you can still just call us Cec & Jan even though we are now celebrities. Our normal titles of “King of the Road” and “Queen of Buzzard’s Ridge” are not necessary.

You may have a slight bit of difficulty figuring out just which ones we are so I’ll help you. Notice at the top of the shot there is a kid perched on his dad’s shoulders (he was there for the entire affair.) From that reference point move your eyes to the right and note the handsome, debonair gentleman with the dark ball cap with a pale yellowish insignia and very dark glasses. Yep, that’s me.

Jan is easier to locate. From the kid, move even further to the left and spot a mass of “pink” at about shoulder level. A tip from Jan, if you go about a third of the frame directly above the top knot (the abbreviated Pentecostal hair insert) on Sarah’s head you will see, under that McCain/Palin hat, my bride.

This photo which you are about to see states the thrust of the entire proceedings—the focus was on Sarah. It should have been and it was. For photography buffs, you will appreciate he was using a wide open ƒ stop with an extremely limited focal range on a dull cloudy day. This allowed him to use a higher shutter speed and avoid the normal problems shooting in the midst of a jostling crowd. The result was an excellent picture of Palin with utter disregard for two of her biggest fans. But, hey, we can at least claim we were photographed together.





In later discussion we expressed our concern about the affect, the cold day had on Sarah. We tossed around ideas about what sort of wear she had chosen to resist the damp discomfort. We then concluded that we really shouldn’t be too concerned about an Alaskan’s ability to deal with cold weather.

Seriously, it wasn’t about us and it really wasn’t about her. It was about American citizens taking the opportunity to express themselves about a slate of candidates who oppose killing womb bound babies, high taxes, gun control, sharing the wealth with those who haven’t earned it, maintaining government in the form it was originally created, and most important, God. I still find it amazing that 15,000 Ozarkians turned out on that raw day to demonstrate that level of enthusiasm.

In His abiding love,

Cecil Moon