Monochrome

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.

Members of the Kalamazoo Bicycle Club hit the road for a club ride, sometime in the late 1970s. That's Jan Hageman pulling the trailer, Aimee Hageman in the trailer, and Dave Hageman's just getting started on the side of the road. Can't identify the other riders; any help would be welcome. I'm not really sure where this photo was taken, but other pictures in the set make it pretty clear the ride leader had chosen a local fire station for the starting point. Addendum 9/16/05: Aimee dropped me a line about this photo the other day. She was shocked.... This might be Richard's photo , not mine, in which case the camera was an Olympus OM-1. Camera: probably Minolta Zoom 110 SLR Photo (probably) by Joel Dinda sometime in the late 1970s.

Santa delivered Minolta's then brand-new 110 Zoom SLR in 1976, so a few days later (quite likely New Years' Day) I borrowed Mom's Beetle and shot some pix. Among the places I visited was the newly-minted Scotts Mill Park, where I took a couple dozen pictures of the old mill which is the park's soul. Camera: Minolta Zoom 110 SLR

Bicycle racers at speed: USCF National Championships at the Ed Rudolph Velodrome in Northbrook, Illinois. I'd guess this is a Points Race heat, but it's a guess; no idea which class or who the riders are. Photo dates from the late 1970s. Camera: Minolta Zoom 110 SLR

Vietnam in the morning, 1971. This is Ward One of the 71st Evacuation Hospital in Pleiku, RVN; home of Signal Support Detachment Pleiku at that time, but once a crucial part of a large hospital. In the background are the water tower and a corner of one of the large tropo antennas everyone associated with the Signal Corps in Pleiku. During my year in Nam, I first lived in Ward Two, then moved to Ward One when a less public room, suitable for NCOs (and real people, for that matter), became available there. Camera: Polaroid SX70

Alvin Holmes and my brother Richard at the sag wagon for a Kalamazoo Bicycle Club event in the late 1970s. The car looks like Sandy Kimbrough's. The things I can't remember about this photograph are pretty annoying: I don't know where it was taken, what event we were hosting, what the date was, or who took the picture. Age and distance seem to have done my memory in.... Camera and photographer unknown.

Auburns, Cords, and Duesenbergs--perhaps the finest of American automobiles--were built in the factory behind this showroom until the marques collectively failed around the start of World War II. The factory's now a very fine museum. This photo, of a pair of Cord automobiles, was taken early in 1999 with my Nikon N90s. I'm afraid that the ACD Museum's website, though pretty, is a bit of a disappointment. Despite that, I heartily recommend the museum; it's a fascinating place with truly delightful automobiles. It's in Auburn, Indiana; just follow the signs from I-69. Graphic Converter was used to improve this photograph.

My mom, and her dad, on an Iowa porch around 1930. This old, battered photograph is a family treasure.

Bicyclists lined up at Cork Lane in Kalamazoo at the start of the Kalamazoo Bicycle Club's first century tour. KBC's origins were already lost in the mists of time when I became the club's president in 1975. A group of cyclists who'd already been riding together informally started publishing a ride schedule sometime in 1971, and made their first publicity splash with a century (100 mile) tour late in the season. The label on this battered photograph doesn't mention the ride's length, but the starting place and the turnout make it likely this was that tour. I've a number of old KBC photographs in my collection, and will likely post them from time to time. Several, including this one, were used in club publicity displays in the late 1970s, which wasn't good for the prints. Many of the pix are nonetheless worth publishing. Kalamazoo Gazette photo by John Lacko October 16, 1971

Probably Dedham, Iowa, 1930s. From my mother's collection; she grew up in Carroll. Information about the bus would be welcome--leave a comment if you know anything. Thanks. Photographer and camera unknown. Scan updated--but still not good--12/20/05.

The Kalamazoo Bicycle Club takes an excursion to Scotts Mill County Park, sometime in 1976. As I recall, the park hadn't yet officially opened, but we found the park system's naturalist wandering the place and she gave us a tour. An interesting day. The building in the background is the miller's home; the mill itself is to the left of and behind the photographer. The fence in this photo is also prominent in the photo I posted a few months back.... This photo may be mine--in which case it's an unusually clear shot from my Minolta Zoom 110--or (more likely) it was taken by my brother (Kalamazoo Richard) with his Olympus OM-1.

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

Pleiku's 71st Evac was still a functioning hospital in 1971, but it had become a small-scale operation by the time I and my mates arrived. All in all, we Signal folks thought the medical operation a mysterious and wonderful thing; we shared the complex but had little interaction with the professional staff, and less with the patients. Here's one of those patients out catching some rays as he recovers from his injuries. I remember this as a unique event; it was pretty rare for us to see the evacuees except as they arrived or left the complex. We did see, and admire, the Medevac crews. This chopper's crew is on-board and the chopper's ready to leave on another rescue. The scenery beyond the helicopter pad is the Pleiku Airbase. Camera: Minolta SR-T 101 Revision 12/8/05: Replaced the original photo with a far better scan. Hadn't previously noticed that the rotor was turning....

The Calumet and Hecla Mining Company built a substantial complex of buildings around the Red Jacket and their other mines early in the twentieth century. Those buildings, now the heart of the Keweenaw National Historical Park , are a truly impressive monument to the miners who toiled far beneath the surface in what was then the planet's deepest mine. This building, according to the site's map (available at the park but not on their website), was the Drill Shop.

Same picture as this one , except black & white....

Same picture as the previous photo , but greyscaled here.... Dyersville, Iowa

Explored! #171 on Flickr [August 24, 2013] Thanks! We drove across Illinois today; tomorrow we'll be moving my sister from Rock Falls, where she's been an intern pastor, back to Wartburg Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa. Found some rather frightening sky on Interstate 80, 'round 'bout Peru.

Rock Falls, Illinois. A dreadfully busy snapshot of a house I spotted while we were loading Debbie's stuff into the truck. I love the roofline, and the odd porch. Mebbe someday I'll try doing the ericdege thing to this one....