[Leica] My crime and punishment and a story (Long)

[MicroGrid@aol.com]

Sal,

Sentance delivered and served. We don need no steenken black tape here!

Actually your punishment reminds me of an old customer from my days selling 
Leicas. Mrs/ Witzeman (RIP) was an optometrist with coke bottle glasses. She 
and her husband, also an optometrist, worked very hard for years and when 
they retired early they started to travel the world. That's when I met her. 
She came in to my store, walked up to me peered at me through her thick 
glasses and wanted the camera with the "best viewfinder" I worked with her 
for a long time trying to get her to see the rangefinder spot through an M4, 
but she could not. then she pointed down to a Leicaflex SL, And said "what 
about that?". Well, boy, could she see through that! Meter needles, focusing 
aid, all perfect. She bought two of them, and a 35 and a 90. and off she 
went. She came back a week later to bring in some film. She had both cameras 
hanging from her neck on the OEM straps. They were clanging together like 
church bells, and looked it! I adjusted the straps and we looked at her 
pictures. My goodness could this woman shoot!!

Her husband passed away shortly after that, but Mrs. Witzeman continued to 
travel shoot pictures.

She was out shooting more than anyone I knew at the time, and her cameras 
showed it. When something would fall off one of them, she would bring it in 
to me, get it fixed, and give it and an equally beatup lens to a grandkid or 
a friends kid. She tried many other brands, but she either could not see 
through them, or the 11 X 14's weren't good enough. she always came back to 
Leica. Her cameras and lenses may have been beat, but I never saw her with a 
dirty lens. Maybe on a trip to Vancouver she showed Ted her secret underwear 
trick.

She would come back form a trip with 30 rolls of film, and then bring in the 
3.5 X 5's and we'd pore over the negatives to try to match up the ones for 
enlargements. Her house and her friends' were covered with 11 X 14's of their 
travels. Have you ever tried to find "the" negative among 72 others of 
the"one" cactus flower!

One time I got a call form her, she had fallen down a mountain in Switzerland 
and destroyed her brand new SL2 and a 28 Elmarit. She was in a hospital. She 
wanted another camera and lens. 

I used to cringe everytime she would walk into the store with thousands of 
1960-70 $$ clunking around her neck. But I bit my tongue and never suggested 
an neveready case. Something inside told me that she would say "posh, they're 
just cameras..Hmmm... What's that lens do?".

I am probably giving you the impression of a doddering old spendthrift. She 
was anything but. She knew the value of a dollar. But she knew she had eye 
problems, and she wanted to take pictures. She needed a camera that would let 
her do that. She knew her cameras were valuable, but she wanted the pictures 
more. 

I chuckle everytime someone talks about cameras as tools and uses a hammer as 
a metaphor. We used to joke about Mrs. Witzeman's cameras AS hammers!

When I saved up enough to by my first Leica, an M5, I didn't buy a case. 

Bruce Bowman
Killingworth CT


In a message dated 6/1/00 7:53:32 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
sdmp007@pressroom.com writes:

<< Bruce,
         The punishment for your "crime" is to remove all black tape from
 your Leicas and to allow them to become nicked and worn!!! >>