While plein-aire painting this great live oak tree at the Magnolia Cemetery at Apalachicola Florida, I met several people visiting their family grave sites. One gentleman approached to see my progress on the painting. With a nod, he pointed to the grave stone directly in front of me and said, "Do you know who that is?" "No sir", says I. He proceeds, "That man is a American Hero . . . he's Colonel Richard S. Heyser, a pilot in the United States Air Force. After another US pilot had been shot down, it was Col Heyser"s flight mission whose photographs revealed Soviet ballistic missiles in Cuba, precipitating the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962." President John F. Kennedy announced that his photographs proved the Soviet Union was building secret missile sites only 90 miles from Key West. With this knowledge and Kennedy=s advice, the crisis ended peacefully after Nikita Krushchev ordered the missiles withdraw from Cuba . . . Ending the threat of WWIII. You meet the most interesting folks while out painting.
