THE STORY SO FAR: PART 118

HARRY CARTLAND IS AN EXTRAORDINARILY TALENTED MAN—WHO DOESN’T KNOW QUITE WHAT TO DO WITH HIS EXPERTISE—AND A FRIEND I HOLD IN HIGH REGARD

I have absolutely no idea why Harry and I are friends. It could be because I have a weakness for dry humor—and Harry’s sense of humor hovers between ulta-dry and manic depressive. He is actually very funny, but you need an electron microscope to see the join. I have stolen his name for my protagonist in SATAN’S SMILE. My character, Harry Fremont, is completely fictional but, I guess, has been somewhat inspired by Harry—and is a scientist. 

He—the real Harry—is also impossibly talented. Let me quote from his very own website—which he coded (naturally). The URL is www.C3Images.biz and it is well worth exploring—great photography. His companion is his wife, Joan.

Harry Cartland has been hiking, backpacking, climbing, skiing, paddling, diving, and generally enjoying the outdoors for 40+ years. He was introduced to the Sierra in 1980 as a Berkeley doctoral student in the College of Chemistry, and has been coming back ever since.

In real life, Harry trained as a scientist and then served as an officer in the Regular Army for seven years, with a number of assignments including the Ballistic Research Laboratory and the Staff and Faculty of the United States Military Academy, where he taught chemistry and physics, as well as mountaineering. After leaving the Army and a short period with the Army Research Office and Duke University, he was a physicist and project leader at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. More recently Harry served on the professional staff of the House Armed Services Committee, and subsequently as a member of the bipartisan Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States. He is currently involved in several technology ventures.

Harry is frequently joined by his wife Joan, whom he met at Berkeley graduate school. As a physician, she makes a valuable travel partner (gastrointestinal distress on every continent so far - thank science for Cipro), besides which she is a good sport. She even married him despite spending a large part of a night on the floor of that $2 a night room in a small town in the Peruvian Andes, after the Shining Path blew up the power station (and the ensuing automatic weapons fire). Her North American "life list" is closing in on 700. They live in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.

How does any of this qualify him as a photographer? It doesn't of course. But taking pictures keeps him out of real trouble. Mostly.

Let's be careful out there.

I met Harry when attending the shoot of Lawrence Livermore’s very own hydrogen powered supergun—a project which Harry ran, along with Doctor John Hunter. Because I was a foreigner (Irish) I wasn’t allowed into the briefing area—but I was allowed to stand in the door and hear and see everything. I featured a supergun in THE DEVIL’S FOOTPRINT.

Only in America.