No Fraidy Cat, He

Our great friend, the guy who introduced the two of us, and a former student of Bill's, Brian English, told us a remarkable story.

Every day, Brian drives the 101 to his job at the Herb Ritts Foundation in LA.   Yesterday he saw a school bus in front of him stalled, with smoke billowing out.  Though he could see the bus was on fire and could hear screaming, he did not know there were 23 third graders trapped inside.  As most every car continued to pass, Brian stopped, kicked in the door of the bus, grabbed a fire extinguisher and with another passerby got the kids off the bus.  No one was injured.  We saw a photograph of the burned out vehicle in today's New York Times. 

Zander, our oldest son called him, "a champion" and told us, "we really know some great ones but Brian's an awesome one."  We bet his kids are proud!

He's also a wonderful photographer having worked as Robert Mapplethorpe's last assistant as well as for Richard Avedon and now for the Ritts Foundation.  You can see his work  here.  His photograph Amos (above) hangs in the entrance to our home.