“It was after dinner. You were talking to me across the table about something or other, a greyhound you had seen that day or a song you liked, and I was looking past you over your bare shoulder at the three oranges lying on the kitchen counter next to the small electric bean grinder, which was also orange, and the orange and white cruets for vinegar and oil. All of which converged into a random still life, so fastened together by the hasp of color, and so fixed behind the animated foreground of your talking and smiling, gesturing and pouring wine, and the camber of your shoulders that I could feel it being painted within me, brushed on the wall of my skull, while the tone of your voice lifted and fell in its flight, and the three oranges remained fixed on the counter the way stars are said to be fixed in the universe. Then all the moments of the past began to line up behind that moment and all the moments to come assembled in front of it in a long row, giving me reason to believe that this was a moment I had rescued from the millions that rush out of sight into a darkness behind the eyes. Even after I have forgotten what year it is, my middle name, and the meaning of money, I will still carry in my pocket the small coin of that moment, minted in the kingdom that we pace through every day.”

Taken in 1967 by Rocco Morabito, this photo called “The Kiss of Life” shows a utility worker named J.D. Thompson giving mouth-to-mouth to co-worker Randall G. Champion after he went unconscious following contact with a low voltage line. Thompson over 400 feet away recognized the critical situation and ran to the pole and scaled it to reach Champion. Realizing champion wasn’t breathing he delivered CPR and chest compression while supporting his friend; super impressive /difficult given the angle (if you get it wrong air goes into the stomach and inflates that instead).