I wonder how many photos before this one and after this one on the roll show blurry versions of the scene, just before the jumper swung into focus, or just after he left.

[As noted in the caption, this was taken on a glass plate, not roll film; a new plate must be loaded between each exposure. - tterrace]

When I was a kid in Altoona, Pa., three houses down from ours was a rather nice place owned by a lumberyard operator. His son had the only backyard pole vault pit I've seen then or since, made possible because of his father's endless supply of sawdust.

They raised a few chickens for eggs and eating, and one day I happened to be on hand when their cook lopped off a chicken's head, and I discovered that a newly-headless bird was capable of a few seconds of running around before collapsing. There wasn't any squawking though, as you can understand.

I wonder what height he cleared. 13.8 feet was the world record record back then.

[Below, a snippet from the following day's Washington Post. - Dave]

      But for the absence of a regulation set of standards another new mark would have been registered in the pole vault. Gartley, a big freshman from the University of Virginia, topped the bar at 11 feet 11 inches, clearing it by no less than a foot.