For many years I was a freelance photographer for newspapers in northern Indiana. My works included countless photos of auto wrecks, group shots of newly-elected school board members, and many charitable check passings. The local junior high school always called when the biology class dissected frogs. Schools were a photographer's paradise, and my favorite picture, taken on Earth Day, has an evergreen sweetness even now. Here it is, with the cutline as it appeared in the South Bend Tribune in April, 1993. One wonders where these kids are today.

TAKING EARTH'S PULSE

Planet Earth wasn't feeling very well as third-graders at Edwardsburg Elementary School prepared their float for an Earth Day parade down the halls of the school Thursday afternoon. Jennifer Bissinger checks the planet's pulse as global warming and acid rain produce a high fever. Jennifer and her pals put a dummy -- with a globe of Earth as its head -- on a stretcher to drive home their feelings about the environment.