My wife and I had taken our dog to a blessing of the animals at our Episcopal Church – I know, I know, October 6 is the feast day of St. Francis. And then dinner. I didn’t check messages until this morning. But then, again, it was too late to call last night. And this morning it is too early to get permission to identify the caller who left a message. So let’s just say a reader says:
Hey, Dan, were you present in Atlanta . . . Kim Dreisbach and Barrie and a couple people were there . . . Brown was there and mentioned that he had some photographs. , , ,
I don’t think I can deny it. I was there. Barrie took this picture. Barrie also wrote the following at shroud.com – so very well said:
On October 15, 2004, I was in Atlanta, Georgia, visiting Fr. Kim Dreisbach. Knowing I would be in town, Kim invited a group of local Shroud researchers to get together for a dinner at our favorite restaurant. In addition to John Brown, who lived in nearby Marietta, Georgia, also in attendance were Russell Breault, founder and publisher of shrouduniversity.com, and Dan Porter, publisher of several excellent Shroud websites (including shroudstory.com), who actually flew in from New York, along with several other friends and supporters of Kim and his work.
As we enjoyed our meal and conversation that evening, John Brown opened a package and passed a series of photographs around the table. I had always been impressed with the quality of the photomicrographs John made, as he was an expert microscopist who had also mastered the art of photography through his microscopes. This spectacular group of photographs was no exception and he revealed that they were of the Raes samples provided to him by Ray Rogers. He explained what we were seeing in detail and I was truly amazed. I immediately asked him if he had written these findings into a formal paper yet and he casually answered, "no."
Somewhat shocked by his response, I got pretty excited and suggested he write an article documenting his findings and allow me to publish it in the January 21, 2005 update of this website, simultaneously with the announcement of the publication of Rogers peer reviewed Thermochimica Acta paper. Thankfully, he agreed, and the result is his excellent article titled, "Microscopical Investigation of Selected Raes Threads from the Shroud of Turin." I am forever grateful that John so kindly allowed me to twist his arm that evening. The result was perhaps his single most important contribution to Shroud science. Sadly, that was the last time I was ever with John, although we spoke on the phone from time to time over the ensuing years. I extend my deepest sympathies to his wife Dorothy, and his family and friends. He will surely be missed by all that knew him, but his work will live on.
I was glad to be reminded. Do read the paper to understand this and the other photographs.
