The photo album crackled with age as the page was turned. This is it, the widow said, tapping a ridged fingernail onto the edges of a black-and-white snapshot. I know hed want the world to remember him this way, in this moment.

Josephine Sheehan placed her reporters notebook on her lap and leaned in close to the old woman, peering at the photo of Ira Needleman on his 1947 trek to the North Pole. His young face was frozen in triumph, frozen in time, and probably just plain frozen. His huge, toothy smile and iced-up goggles were all she could see of a slight man buried inside a fur parka, both arms raised in triumph against the vast white horizon, a U.S. flag flapping above the permafrost. It was a photo of a guy whod made it to the top of the world, literally. No wonder his widow had chosen this photo to accompany his obituary.

Its a wonderful picture, Josie said, smiling at Gloria Needleman.

He was so young, and everything was ahead of him. With a sigh, Mrs.

Needleman gently peeled the photo from its yellowed page.

As shed already told Josie, Ira would return to San Francisco just months after this photo was taken, where hed meet Gloria and fall in love. Theyd get married. Theyd have kids and grandkids. Ira would run a successful Bay Area electrical supply company. Hed mentor four inner-city kids and pay for their college educations. Hed compete in his first triathlon at the age of seventy. The young man in the snow had just begun the grand adventure of his life.