By David Nancarrow

As a person employed by a local television station, which covers stories of community interest, I consider myself a provider of a local commodity to the community in which I work. I recently benefited from a small business operating locally which pulled through where a nationally recognized company could not.

I am newly married as of September. My wife and I honeymooned in Mexico, a country I’ve never before been. Along the way we took pictures chronicling our first big trip as man and wife. I believe we made it back with more than 200 photographs, all captured on a pocket sized digital camera. The pictures are stored on an XD card which fits into the camera. The card is a small plastic disk about the size and shape of a postage stamp.

Technology is great, isn’t it?

For whatever reason, the pictures popped up when we first reviewed them on a laptop computer that belongs to someone else. To our great dismay, when we tried to look at them on our own laptop, the pictures were not there. Gone.

Gone.

Making a few calls to people more computer savvy than ourselves, we discovered that the data was still on the XD card. The problem was that somehow that data became corrupted. I cannot describe it any simpler than that, nor can I fully understand what that means, except that pictures that we once saw could no longer be seen.

Our first stop to see if the photographs could be discovered was to a large store that specializes in electronics. This store is supported by a nationally notable squad of technical trouble shooters. The squad quickly determined they could in no way be of any help.

We found our way to a local branch of a home-grown Colorado company in Colorado Springs which specializes in personal computer repair. They took our card, and without making any promises, told us they would try to recover the pictures for an estimated cost.

Four days later, I had every single one of my photographs and a potentially heart-breaking disaster had been averted.

I am compelled to share this story because I consider it Americana in action. It is service and performance like this which stands as a shining example of the kinds of mom-and-pop stores that make the city of Colorado Springs and communities like it across the country truly great.

All my thanks to the home team!