By Stephen & Eileen Schultz
Ever accidentally erase or lose a compact flash (CF) card for a digital camera? We and our friend did. Last August, we lost ours in Frankfurt, Germany. Our long time friend who was the best man in our wedding that we had accompanied on the Baltic Sea cruise had snapped many of the same pictures as we did. Unfortunately, he hit a wrong menu selection on his camera that erased images in its memory card. Our compact flash card had presumably fallen out of an unzipped pocket purse prior to boarding our non-stop flight home. Needless to say, we were both were crushed to realize that ours could not be found or recovered.
It took over two months before we reluctantly accepted that it was seemingly lost for good. At times, we each had recurrent “whispers” inside our minds that it would be found only to push away those wishful thoughts.
Well, to our huge surprise, we received a forwarded email from the Jewish Deaf Community Center (JDCC) as sent by an Australian, Mr. Richard Bowey, who works in South Africa. He explained that his son, Adam, was returning from a ski trip in Whistler, Canada had found the camera card at the Frankfurt airport on the way to visit him. He tried without success to track its owners via inquiries at the airport and the two cruise companies that we had sailed on as gleaned from the photos. His father, Richard, offered to try his luck via Google search engine after picking up additional clues from the photos.
The photographs included those of old Jewish synagogues and sites besides our Viking River Cruise name tags and the name of the other cruise ship, Star Princess, that we had posed in front of at various ports. The photos included the first three days in the Czech Republic in the beautiful city of Prague before picking up a Viking river cruiser from Nuremberg, Germany down the awesome Danube River to Budapest, Hungary. From there we flew up to Copenhagen, Denmark for one week before boarding the Star Princess for a Baltic Sea cruise to St. Petersburg, Russia as well as Scandinavian countries. Among the approximately 300 photos, the Jewish sites apparently may have tipped off the sleuthing gentleman that we could be affiliated to a Jewish organization.
With those observations and hunches, he “took a punt” and searched the internet using our given and surnames, Stephen and Eileen Schultz. The JDCC Newsletter popped up among other leads and sent in inquiries to them. Upon receipt of his e-mail, the JDCC forwarded his inquiry to us. Imagine our joyful surprise to read his e-mail regarding a lost memory card that inquired, “Could it belong to your Eileen and Stephen Schultz?” With great excitement, we responded “YES, IT IS US!” and described several places that we had visited in the photographs to verify the fact that we were its proper owners.
Either one of them could have easily erased the expensive CF card for their own use but instead they chose to at least try and find its owners. The father and son efforts have helped to restore our faith that there are good people out there that still care. We look forward to the CF card’s promised return via international certified mail and many happy memories. For sure, our best man would be grateful for copies, too!
