213 search results for "herb ringer"

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BEFORE TELLURIDE & ASPEN WENT CRAZY: 1950-1980/Photos by Herb Ringer (ZX# 101)

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From Edward Abbey’s “The Journey Home”
“The town of Telluride was actually discovered back in 1957, by me, during a picnic expedition into the San Miguel Mountains of southwestern Colorado. I recognized it at once as something much too good for the general public. For thirteen years I kept the place a secret from all but my closest picnicking cronies. No use: I should have invested everything I had in Telluride real estate. In 1970 a foreigner from California named Joseph T. Zoline moved in with $5 million and began the Californica-tion of Telluride. Formerly an honest, decayed little mining town of about good souls, it is now a bustling whore of a ski resort with a population of 1,500 and many more to come. If all goes badly, as planned… 

… Men weep, men pray and kneel, but money talks. Money walks and talks and gets things done.
— EA

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HERB RINGER— 25 Years After He Left Us: December 11, 1998 —Jim Stiles (ZX#92)

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On December 11, 1998, twenty-five years ago today, my friend Herb Ringer passed away in Fallon, Nevada. He was 85 years old. His health had been failing for a few years. In 1994, Herb was forced to give up driving — the greatest joy of his life — when he was diagnosed with a rapidly deteriorating case of macular degeneration. I had met up with him that summer at a high mountain lake above Crested Butte, Colorado. Earlier that week, an optometrist in Salida had diagnosed his condition and warned Herb that he needed to head home to Fallon immediately. Herb took the news stoically, maybe better than I did, and he left for Fallon the next day.

…this story is personal; it’s more about our friendship than his special artistic talents, though both are forever intertwined. I’d like to tell you more about Herb Ringer, the good-hearted, decent man and loyal friend that he became to me. We were connected in a way that I have rarely experienced. Herb once said, “You’re the son I never had.” The feeling was mutual.

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HERB RINGER: “He’d rather be in Colorado”…1946-1971 #1 (ZX# 82)

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Herb would return to Colorado scores of times over the next half century. He photographed and documented every town or ghost town he came across. He would, over the years, draw a detailed series of maps, to scale, of the mining towns that were, even in the fifties fading into history and dust. In addition to his photographs and these amazing maps (…and I plan to publish at least a good sampling of them soon), he would often spend his winters just thinking of Colorado. As he and his parents were weathered the Reno winter, he wrote his own histories of many Colorado towns and mining districts, often depending on his own extraordinary memory. His facts were rarely wrong.

But visually, there is nothing Herb Ringer accomplished that was more impressive, or insightful, than his remarkable Kodachrome transparencies. Below is just Volume 1 of a series of Colorado towns and its people, that he was wise enough to photograph, and I was lucky enough to inherit…

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HERB RINGER’S PRICELESS ‘ARTIFACTS’ Vol, 1 W/ Jim Stiles (ZX#62)

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But several months later, I rediscovered the paper bag and opened it up. It contained several hundred Kodachrome transparencies from the camera of herb Ringer. They were images of the American West, in pristine condition; the color was as vivid and sharp as the day Herb took them. Now he had given them to me. I was overwhelmed and Herb was delighted that he’d found someone who loved and appreciated his photographs as much as I did. This was 1986

And now Herb wanted to start sharing other treasures with me. His extraordinary photographs were just the beginning. He wanted to share the rest of his priceless possessions with me. That’s what this Zephyr Extra Part 1 is about. In that little 42 foot trailer, Herb maintained a museum of sorts. Knowing we shared this love of history, he began to insist that I take them. He knew I would cherish them as much as he did…

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HERB RINGER & his Love for the Rural West’s Small Towns (1940s-50s) Volume 1 (ZX#54) w/Jim Stiles

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On May 30, 1939, Herb Ringer’s life changed forever. As he drove away from his family home in Ringoes, New Jersey, he could not have guessed that as he backed out of the driveway and turned west, that his life would never be the same again. And yet the departure was hardly a happy moment for Herb. In fact, he dreaded it. I’m sure it felt more like the most painful of deaths than the beginning of a new and indescribably beautiful future.

Herb had been married for less than two years, but it had been a disaster. Neither of them was happy. But Herb made a decision that in 1939 was almost unthinkable. He decided to file for divorce. Though his wife was just as unhappy as he was, the stigma of divorce was more than bare. She pleaded with Herb to change his mind. He was barely less humiliated than she was. He didn’t want to be known as “that man” who divorced his wife in the little hamlet of Ringoes. And so Herb made a decision that he thought might make the process less painful for both of them. He would travel all the way across America, to Reno, Nevada. Even then it was known as the “Divorce Capital of the World.”

***
When Herb first started giving me his photos, I realized that he took the time to do what few of us even consider. We took the scenic shots. Herb often turned the camera around and took pictures of the people who were taking pictures. And he stopped to photograph the little towns that most people just wanted to get through. Eventually he would give me all his photographs. Thousands of them. And among them dozens…scores…hundreds of little communities in the West that everyone else ignored.

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HERB RINGER @ ZION & BRYCE( 1946-1965): The Complete Collection* (ZX#47)

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Herb Ringer and his mother and father started traveling extensively after the end of WWII. Until then, most of Herb’s wanderings were in the vicinity of Reno, Nevada or the far eastern side of California. he especially loved exploring the abandoned mines and ghost towns of Nevada. But in 1946, the Ringers headed for the Grand Canyon and other parks of the Colorado Plateau. They were stunned by the Grand Canyon and Herb’s father, Joseph, recorded his thoughts in the journal that Herb gave him for Christmas 1944. Joseph would maintain that journal until his death in 1963. Many of those journal entries are included in this story.

The Ringer Family’s first big trip to Utah came in 1946. They were still driving their 1941 Lincoln Zephyr, though you will only see one photograph of it, farther down in the Bryce Canyon section. So many Zephyr readers love Herb’s cars as much as the scenery so I have included excerpts from Joseph Ringer’s journals about both. You’ll find the history of their car purchases to be remarkably detailed. And that makes sense since most Americans then (and now) are more worried about their vehicles running than geology.

This album and the excerpts are from numerous trips that began in 1946. But most of them are from trips in the Ford Woody and the turquoise Ford truck with the camper, between 1950 and 1956. I include a couple additional photos from 1962, and one from1965, when Herb was now traveling alone with his mother. Joseph died of cancer in 1963, a year before Medicare legislation was passed. Herb later told me that he spent the family’s entire life savings, $37,000 trying to save his father…JS

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“I LONGED for the WESTERN LIFE.”–HERB RINGER’S Great Adventure — Jim Stiles (ZX#39)

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NOTE: I’m posting this in the afternoon of December 11. My old friend Herb Ringer died 24 years ago today. I have shared his pictures and stories for the entire life of this publication. And I’ve written a few about my dear friend. This story combines parts of past stories and introduces some new ones as well. And more pictures, of course. He is still missed after a quarter of a century, especially by me—JS

EXCERPT:
“Herb,” I’ll ask, “Here’s a picture of you on horseback and in the next picture there’s a girl on her hands and knees under her horse. What’s that all about?”

His worn out eyes sparkle. “Yes!” he smiles, “That’s Skippy. That was in the High Sierras in about 1942. She loved her horse and the horse would do anything for her. She bet me she could sit right under it and I didn’t believe her. So she climbed down and crawled right under the horse’s front legs. So, I took a picture. And that night I bought her a steak dinner.”

I could hear Herb moving things about in his closet and a few moments later he emerged from the bed room, a manila-covered album held tenderly in his hands. He returned to his chair, a bit winded from the short trip, and then he placed the large book in my lap. It was the size and shape of a photo album but was covered with brown wrapping paper and held together with yellowed Scotch tape. I opened the binding to the first page….

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HERB RINGER’S AMERICA: Coast-to-Coast (Back East 1909-1924) ZX#32

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These images come mostly from Joseph Ringer’s albums. Joseph was a classical musician and performed with some of the greatest orchestras and maestros on the planet. Joseph’ journal recorded page after page of information about his life and of his wife and son. He listed all those  great maestros and symphony orchestras in his journal. Joseph was also an artist; and Herb inherited his gift. Included below is a photo of Herb holding one of his early works of art. He couldn’t have been more than eight or nine.

So technically, in this edition of “Herb Ringer, Coast-to-Coast,” it’s really his amazing father who should get the photo credits. These images begin before Herb was born, going back to 1909. Herb was born in Brooklyn in 1913, but because his father performed with different orchestras, the Ringers moved about. They spent part of the next few years in Cincinnati, Ohio,. Take a trip through Time with the Ringer Family…JS

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HERB RINGER at the GRAND CANYON (The Complete Collection: 1950-1957) ZX#18

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During the past 34 years, I’ve mostly limited the range of Herb’s photos to the West. But Herb traveled all over America and into Canada. Though this issue starts with a very familiar and beloved location–the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, future editions will expand Herb’s work to locations from California to New England. At some point when I can find the time (like when I quit mowing the grass), I’d like to make this feature our second “Zephyr Extra” of the week, appearing each Thursday. I may not always be able to live up to that plan, but I will do my best. We’ll see how it goes.

Herb and I spent countless hours together over the years. He gave me all his old images, his journals and other memorabilia of his life. He started to lose his eyesight during the last few years and I often visited him at his home in Fallon, Nevada. After his passing, I wrote a long story about my buddy and mentor. I will include the link here but I wanted to share this one passage from it:

“His mind is as clear and crisp as the Rocky Mountain streams he spent summers by, in years past. But his body is failing him. As I watched Herb disappear into his darkened bed room, I knew he was making his way there by memory as well. His eyesight has deteriorated to the point where he can’t even see the vast collection of photographs he took of his favorite places over the last half a century. But he can still enjoy them. He pointed a finger to his head and said, ‘In here, I can still see everything.’”

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