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.
Tags: joel paul dinda grandpa grandfather bw old 1949 notbyme unknownphotographer joeldinda
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).
Tags: truck kalamazoo fire department old 3-a pumper firefighters fairgrounds notbyme bw joeldinda
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.
Tags: kalamazoo fire department kfd 9 kalamazoo fire truck engine michigan bw black&white station martinsernstinger notbyme joeldinda
Photographer: Martin Sernstinger, developed (at Michigan News) June 8, 1955. Explored! #56 [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 comment below]. 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 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.
Tags: roger dinda firefighters cabbies taxi taxicab kalamazoo vicinity martin sernstinger kalamazoo bw wow notbyme michiganfavorites 1-10-fav fifties joeldinda 56 comment72057594123325000>my
Deep snow at 1318 Palmer Avenue in Kalamazoo. Compare this view with the 1972 photo I took of the same sunporch for a sense of scale; there's a lot more snow in this pic. The icicles were a constant decoration, or bother.
Dad's slide dates from the 1950s. We moved to the Palmer house in 1957, and I suspect this was taken during our first winter. Since we stayed there for fifteen years, the two pictures demonstrate the change in appearance of the house during our tenure.
Things badly needed paint at this point; I'd guess this is a winter '57-'58 picture just from the state of the window frames. The house was never in poor shape, but we devoted a lot of effort to keeping things up. Looks like our predecessors weren't so determined to do that.
Camera: Argus C3
Tags: snow palmer kalamazoo home notbyme rogerdinda c3 joeldinda