Kalamazoo

A year ago I spent the day with my brother, as our sister had other commitments. I took nearly a hundred pictures in their poorly-lit house of various knickknacks, most of which turned out poorly, but those pix were a stretch for the camera in the first place and I wasn't particularly disappointed. The photo above is of the roof of their garage, where the light was fine. The 366 Snaps photo I took on my way to Kalamazoo, at the corner of M-43/M-50/M-66 (call it Woodbury, I guess) . I was stopped, while the other car was in motion. Not one of my normal pix, but I rather like the effect. ========== This photograph is an outtake from my 2012 photo-a-day project, 366 Snaps . Number of project photos taken: 100 Title of " roll :" Kalamazoo Trip (card FULL) Other photos taken on 12/7/2012: none.

Two crops of the same photo. ========== This photograph is an outtake from my 2012 photo-a-day project, 366 Snaps . 366 Snaps project discussion and stats for September 4 .

Kalamazoo College is probably best known as host to the USTA Boys Nationals tennis tournament ( lousy Wikipedia link ), but the college has been home to the Kalamazoo Bach Festival for nearly as long. While Stetson Chapel's not the only hall the festival's used, it's always been the main venue. I first attended this festival in the early 1960s, and made it to most festival concerts until about 1980. For several years in the mid-70s I joined my father and sister in the Festival Chorus under the baton of Dr. Russell Hammar . So Stetson's familiar ground. It's a gorgeous building. And Kalamazoo's an excellent, small, liberal arts college with an international emphasis. I very nearly attended K instead of Macalester. ========== I was in Kalamazoo again, obviously, last September 4, I think to transport my sister to a doctor's appointment. On the way I realized I'd not taken any Kalamazoo pix except around the hospital. Why not, I thought, visit K's campus? The 366 Snaps photo for September 4 features a shaded meeting area behind the chapel, with what I believe is Mandelle Hall--a library when I was in high school, but long since converted into an admin building--in the background. ========== This photograph is an outtake from my 2012 photo-a-day project, 366 Snaps . Number of project photos taken: 25 Title of " roll :" Kalamazoo College Other photos taken on 9/4/2012: I took along the V1, and shot a few campus pix with that camera as well. They weren't significantly better than those I took with the tablet.

Gull Road, Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Where there's life there's hope. Kalamazoo's Riverside Cemetery.

Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Downtown Kalamazoo, across the street (more or less) from the West Michigan Cancer Center.

Looking west toward St. Augustine's parish from the Cancer Center. For most of my life, and for decades before I was born, the Arcadia Creek ran underneath the buildings and parking lots in downtown Kalamazoo. If you knew where to look there were places you could see the water, but I imagine folks lived their whole lives in Kalamazoo without realizing the town had a downtown creek. In the early 1990s the city daylighted the creek, with this result. Much better, though it's still in a straitjacket. A couple blocks east it breaks free of the channel into a park that serves as a festival site. A great improvement

The Museum on the left; Kalamazoo Valley Community College on the right. For most of my life, and for decades before I was born, the Arcadia Creek ran underneath the buildings and parking lots in downtown Kalamazoo. If you knew where to look there were places you could see the water, but I imagine folks lived their whole lives in Kalamazoo without realizing the town had a downtown creek. In the early 1990s the city daylighted the creek, with this result. Much better, though it's still in a straitjacket. A couple blocks east--past the arches--it breaks free of the channel into a park that serves as a festival site. A great improvement.

I spent a while this afternoon wandering around the Arcadia District in Kalamazoo. This is perhaps the most striking building in Kalamazoo's downtown, and is just over a century old.

As you can see, Kalamazoo's transportation center was built around the old train depot, which was originally built by the Michigan Central and long part of the New York Central system. Unfortunately, all the construction to accommodate the local and inter-city buses has largely obscured the gorgeous railroad building.

When we dropped in on my Uncle Keith's 80th birthday party the other day, Aunt Jackie handed me this photograph of me and my grandfather. According to the note on the back, I was eight months old--so we'll date the picture as October, 1949. In all honesty, I don't remember Grandpa ever looking this young; he was 60 years older than me, and I really only remember him as an old man. Scanned from a faded, small, slightly-out-of-focus print. Not sure who took it, nor where the photo was taken, but it must be in or near Kalamazoo. Significantly cropped to remove a bush which doesn't contribute anything much to the original photograph. Some noise removed, but I couldn't do much about the focus problems. Not particularly related: The view counter on my photostream went over 9000 while I was posting this photo. Thanks for looking.

Kalamazoo firefighters, out playing with an old fire engine at the Kalamazoo fairgrounds, in 1955 or thereabouts. Another Martin Sernstinger photo inherited from my father, who was a KFD firefighter when he was young (and I was really young).

Explored! #369 on Friday, February 1, 2008. Thanks! Kalamazoo Fire Department's Engine 9. It's parked in front of the old North Burdick Station , called Fours by the firefighters. 1955 or thereabouts. While Dad was with the department, they replaced a substantial number of trucks with these larger, more impressive Seagrave units. I suspect that's what Martin Sernstinger was actually documenting with many of these photographs.

Photographer: Martin Sernstinger, developed (at Michigan News) June 8, 1955. Explored! #56 on Flickr [July 6, 2007.] Thanks! My father--Roger Dinda--is on the left in this photo. The guy in the middle is Fred Stone, and I'm not sure who the other is; since Dad & Stoney were off-duty firemen, I presume the other guy was as well [Sam Garrison, it turns out; see my brother's Flickr comment ]. Dad was a firefighter when I was young, and considered himself still a firefighter until he died. On his off-days, he held other jobs. The fallback job--this one--was called "driving hacks." Or just "hacking." The photo was taken on Michigan Avenue (still called Main Street in 1955, methinks) in Kalamazoo, in front of the cab stand beside Michigan News Agency. The official-looking building across the road is the Kalamazoo County Building, which still looks about the same; on the other hand, Michigan Avenue's been a One Way road for most of my life. Michigan News still stocks comic books, which was the attraction when I was a kid. Good place to buy maps, too. Since the picture dates from 1955, it's over fifty years old. Mom had us digging through boxes of old photos shortly before she died. This one was the best of a stash of Sernstinger pix which had mostly obvious firefighting connections. Dad was a little chubby, I see.... New scan uploaded 12/30/05.

Bicycle racers coming down the hill at Kalamazoo's Spring Valley park in April of 1978. Looks like this is the race we called "Class A"--since this was an early-season training series, we let the racers self-select rather than use the official categories. It mostly worked all right, though occasionally the race officials (that would be me) would intervene. Shot this with my Minolta Zoom 110 SLR.

Referee Skip Obermeyer prepares the USCF Midgets (looks like three of 'em) for the start of a race on a rainy day in April of 1978. (Or perhaps 1979.) I joined KBC in September of 1973, and attended my first club meeting a few days later. That meeting was dominated by a proposal from T.J. (Jeff) Smith that the club join the Amateur Bicycle League of America (ABLA--later the United States Cycling Federation) and begin promoting races. The issue was not decided at that meeting, but in the spring of 1975 the club hosted an early-season racing series at Kalamazoo's Spring Valley Park. The series would continue for several years; for most of those years I was the race promoter. Our role on the Michigan USCF schedule was to provide early-season racing opportunities for the state's racers; our objective in Kalamazoo was, of course, to introduce the sport to the community. It was fun, and the riders seemed to enjoy the event, but staging four early-season races can be pretty hard on your volunteers. My notes say the rider in the middle is a very young Frankie Andreu, who'd go on to bigger races as a member of Lance Armstrong's Posties. Spring Valley Park, Kalamazoo. Camera: Minolta Zoom 110 SLR

We revisit the April, 1978 edition of the Spring Valley Road Series, sponsored by the Kalamazoo Bicycle Club at Kalamazoo's Spring Valley Park. The course had one short, steep, climb. The lead rider in this photo has just topped the hill, and they will all be sprinting for a prime a couple hundred yards along the course. Shot with the Minolta Zoom 110 Zoom SLR, of course. Believe it or not, I took these to illustrate a magazine article. Unfortunately the magazine went bankrupt, and the edition, although printed, never made it into circulation. I've always regretted that....