 Like Julius Caesar, I crossed the Rubicon when, without much thought, I entered into a career in journalism. It was bound to happen after seeing a film of President Kennedy's assassination, Jack Ruby shooting Harvey Oswald, and then working for Bobby Kennedy in Nebraska and California and seeing a television clip of him being gunned down by Sirhan Sirhan. I also was invited to the funeral, an incredible experience for a 21-year-old.     LITTLETON, Colo. _ Two young men in fatigues and black trench coats attacked fellow students with guns and explosives in a suicide mission at Columbine High School in Denver's suburbs, killing 12 students and one teacher. The gunmen were later found dead in the library. On that horrible day, tears often welling in my eyes, there one spot of brightness. First a small batch, then another, followed by a cascade of flowers that buried a small tree in Clement Park. I felt like I was at Lourdes. *The entire AP bureau, writers, writers in other bureaus, managers, techs, administrative assistant and photographers contributed.  SHANTI VANA, India _ Rajiv Gandhi, dutiful son, circled his mother's body seven times and touched her face lightly with a burning piece of sandalwood. Then, as hundreds of thousands watched, he lighted the butter-soaked logs beneath her. The 40-year-old Gandhi, who had already taken over his mother's office as prime minister, was now fulfilling his role as sole, surviving son, consigning her to eternity in the ancient Indian rite of cremation. As the flames leaped higher, he and other mourners erected a pyramid of logs over her flower-covered red sari, and Hindu priests chanted mantras and prayers beseeching that her remains be scattered to the air and ground, the wind and water. White smoke curled into the air. The estimated 400,000 Indians swarming over the grassy flats beside the Yamuna River raised cry after cry of tribute to the assassinated government chief, the woman who had led the country for 15 years. *The entire staff, Foreign Editor Nate Polowetzky and visiting writers and legendary photographer Horst Faas helped.  ANC SAYS BOMBING OF AIR FORCE BUILDING DOES NOT MEAN CIVILIANS WILL BE HIT The guerrilla group blamed for South Africa's worst bombing is under pressure by younger members to wage all-out war against the white-minority regime. But veterans of the African National Congress say for now, they will limit attacks to military targets. On Friday, a car bomb exploded outside the air force headquarters in the capital city of Pretoria, killing 17 people and wounding 188 others, including many civilians. Officials blamed the attack on the ANC, which has been outlawed in South Africa. In a statement telexed to Johannesburg on Saturday from their headquarters in Lusaka, Zambia, the guerrillas declared: "The escalating armed struggle, which was imposed on us as a result of the intransigence and violence of the apartheid regime, will make itself felt among an increasing number of those who have chosen to serve in the enemy's forces of repression." Thabo Mbeki, the ANC's war minister in Lusaka and son of a guerrilla leader imprisoned in South Africa, was asked in a telephone interview whether ANC guerrillas had planted the bomb, but said he could not go beyond the telex statement. Asked if the ANC's stated policy of not attacking civilians was still in force, Mbeki said, "That certainly remains our policy." In an interview with The Associated Press in Lusaka in March, Mbeki said guerrilla attacks inevitably would injure and kill civilians, including blacks, but that was not the organization's aim. BEFORE AFTER  STORM KING FIRE KILLS 14 FIREFIGHTERS GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colo. _ Flames trapped firefighters battling a fierce wildfire on Wednesday, killing at least 14. About 50 firefighters were trapped and overcome by flames as they fought the 500-acre (200-hectare) fire on Storm King Mountain west of here, said Garfield County Undersheriff Levy Burris. The Weather Service had warned deadly winds could cause the fire to erupt, but somehow the message didn't reach everyone. And some of the victims, from Oregon, were not familiar with the vegetation and how readily it burned.  A SMILE AS WARM AS A CAMPFIRE ON A COLD WINTER NIGHT STARWOOD, Colo. _ John Denver could make himself understood with a smile, whether in the Soviet Union during the Cold War, Africa during a famine or with Kermit the Frog. Stuck in an African town on the other side of the world from his beloved Aspen he couldn't resist taking out a guitar and playing “Darcy Farrow” when this reporter mentioned how much he loved it. Our friendship didn't end in Africa. I met him again in Alaska and several times in Colorado. I also covered his funeral and musical made as a tribute, "Almost Heaven."  ESKIMOS RISK LIVES IN HUNT FOR BOWHEAD WHALE "Robert Weller, Chief of the Associated Press bureaus in Alaska, had the rare experience of joining Eskimo whale hunters in 1978 their pursuit of the bowhead whale on the Bering Sea. Here is his account." Only walrus hide a quarter-inch thick separates the whaling crew from the icy Bering Sea. At times you can see the water through the skin of the boat. Leonard Apangalook, the captain works the sails skillfully to search in silence for the bowhead whale. Preston Apangalook - the crew is made up of the four Apangalook brothers - is ready to toss the harpoon if a whale draws near. Paul stands lookout.The other brother, Mike, helps Leonard monitor CB radio traffic in Eskimo dialect on whale sightings. As a long-time skier I had considerable experience with cold. And I wore a $500 Arctic World AP had bought for me in 1976. Still, sitting still, I felt like I would only be warm if I was cremated like Robert Service's Sam McGee.  JUST A FRIEND FROM ANOTHER STAR VAIL, Colo. _ Christopher Reeve won't walk by the time he turns 50 this Sept. 25, as he once vowed, but giving up isn't in the vocabulary of the articulate former Juilliard student. Instead, he is speaking around the country, finishing a second book, battling to lift restrictions on research that could lead to a cure to his paralysis, and exercising almost daily. "There will be a cure. It is very important for me to stay in the best possible condition to be prepared," he said in an interview at a weekend fund-raising event for the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation. "His strength and commitment to doing something to find a cure for himself and others in his situation is breathtaking," said singer Judy Collins, who met Reeve during his Superman film days. Reeve braved freezing temperatures and light snow to cheer the winners of the American Ski Classic, an event he competed in before his injury in 1995. "He gives other people courage," said Collins. "He was always a very down-to-earth man. He hasn't changed." Just the mention of Superman still brings a smile to his face. "I'm very proud of those films, especially the first two. They have already found a place in film history. It was the first time a comic book hero got full-screen treatment," he said. "I am glad that in my career I've gone down a lot of avenues." They included appearing on Broadway with Katherine Hepburn, and a prep school upbringing. Since his fall on a thorough-bred horse, Reeve has become an advocate of more funding for a cure for paralysis. He also has driven himself, riding a bike 10 miles a day three times a week and using electrical stimulation to move his legs. Now he doesn't need oxygen when he visits the 8,115-foot-high ski resort. He also feels sensations in the back of his spine. It is as if he is forcing his spine to leap across the infinitesimal gap that has paralyzed him. "Activity can cause regeneration or sprouting of nerves and waken dormant pathways," he said. His big fear is that the abortion debate will delay stem cell research, the best hope for finding a cure for paralysis. He said in-vitro fertilization met similar opposition but "today there are 177,000 people walking around who were created in a test tube." "My greatest fear is that we what we fear today will be commonplace tomorrow but in the meantime thousands of people will die or suffer needlessly."   LIBYANS BLOW UP FRENCH AIRLINER, SAHARAN TRAGEDY AGADEZ, Niger _ After more than an hour of nothing but Sahara sand, wondering whether we would ever find the needle in this haystack of sand, the tiny pieces of UTA Flight 772 first appeared like confetti. Then big chunks of the fuselage, shattered in the crash, came into view. It was hard to imagine, during a low-level flight over the crash scene, that the pieces ever came together to form a jumbo jet. Some of the bodies of the 170 victims were seen strapped in their chairs scattered around the site. Virtually everyone of us had flown on UTA, a private French airline that was later nationalized, and some on the plane now mangled on the ground. A group of reporters in relatively nearby Abidjan chartered an Air Ivoire turbo-prop to fly to Niamey, the capital of Niger. That night, as we were having dinner, a tall French pilot approached us and asked us if we wanted to hire him to fly us to the wreckage. He got an unanimous chorus of approval. He warned the French solders on the ground wouldn't be welcoming, and he wasn't kidding.  ASHES OF DREAMS IN MOUNTAIN PINES PINE JUNCTION, Colo. _ Down the mountain road, freshly scrawled signs thank firefighters "for saving our dreams." Patsy and Steve Kruzek have only memories. "This place may be beautiful again, but not in my lifetime," said Patsy, standing outside the stone basement of what had been a three-story home. It was all that was left of a 35-acre holding probably worth $350,000. Smoke tufted up next to the statue of a howling coyote, who almost seemed to be feeling the couple's pain.  WORLD WAR III AVOIDED PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE _ American and Russian officers claimed success Friday in their joint effort to make certain their were no accidental nuclear missile launches because of the Y2K computer bug. There was a little rush of excitement when U.S. monitors detected a Russian missile being launched at Chechna. But we all went home early because once no missiles had been launched in the first hours of Russian time we knew the threat was over.  SKYJACKINGS During a two-week period in November of 1971 two planes were hijacked over Montana, where I was working for United Press International. They were among the first of a wave of hijackings. The first skyjacker, Paul Cini, was overpowered by the crew. The second was by the legendary D.B. Cooper, who parachuted from the back of a jet and was never seen again. Ten years later, legendary mercenary Col. Mad Mike Hoare, traveling with 40 men disguised as a rugby team, attempted a coup in the Seychelles and when it failed hijacked an Air Indian jet and forced the pilot to fly it to South Africa, where he and his men were arrested. I flew to Durban on a small plane owned by a CBS cameraman and dear friend. When I phoned the desk in Johannesburg and told them there were 40 hijackers they inititally didn't want to believe me until I told them the source was a security policeman I knew from previous encounters.  ENCOUNTER WITH LOWLAND GORILLA Although I had once covered a Hollywood gorilla, during the making of King Kong outside the World Trade Centers, later in Gabon I met the real thing. A primatologist accidentally let a lowland gorrilla out of its cage. It threw a forearm at me, cracking the lens case on my Nikon. Meanwhile, the primatologist slid under a baboon cage for shelter. She told me to close the gate and go get help. I was torn, could I leave her there within reach of the gorrilla? I certainly didn't think I could help. But I wasn't sure I could even close the gate and didn't want to be the next target of the gorrilla. So I ran up the hill screaming in French that the guerrilla had escaped. All ended well when the boss came down and tranquilized the 400-pound animal. This did not become a news story but made the AP Log, and I was reimbursed for the cracked lens filter.  UNSINKABLE LEADVILLE FINDS A WAY TO SURVIVE WITHOUT MINES LEADVILLE, Colo. _ In 1882, Oscar Wilde visited this rough-and-tumble mining town high in the Rockies and read the works of Renaissance author Benvenuto Cellini to a group of townspeople. The crowd liked it so much they asked Wilde why he hadn't brought the writer along. Wilde explained that Cellini was dead. "Who shot him?" someone in the crowd asked. As of Friday, the mines that made Leadville a tough and pitiless Wild West outpost are all gone. But while the place is a far cry from its heyday, when 40,000 people packed the city, Leadville is no ghost town. In fact, Leadville is booming again, a growing middle-class community of charming Victorian homes. "Leadville will never die because living here becomes the most important thing in your life," said Stephanie Olson, who gave up her law practice to care for her kids and run a small scenic railroad in Leadville, at 10,430 feet the nation's highest incorporated city. (The photos are from various sources) |