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Show : THE ZEPHYR/DECEMBER 2005-JANUARY 2006 ABOW! HERB Herb Ringer was born on July 13, 1913 in Ringoes, New Jersey. In the late 1930s, he traveled west to Nevada, originally to get a divorce from a woman he grieved for and still missed a half century later. But for the love he lost in a Carson City courtroom, he found another---Herb fell madly, passionately, forever in love with the Great American West. He declared Reno, Nevada the home of his heart and Herb traveled every remote corner of the the West for almost 60 years, taking pictures as he went. The result of that effort is extraordinary---his collection of thousands and thousands of color photographs and journals is a historic record of another time and of another place. But there was more to Herb than his photographs. In some ways Herb Ringer’s life and story are unremarkable. Herb never made a lot of money; he worked long hours most of his life as a grocery clerk, a job that was often tedious and unrewarding. In the early 1940s, he brought his aging parents west to Reno and cared for both of them until they passed on. As age caught up with Herb as well, he struggled, like so many other senior citizens, on a limited fixed income just to make ends meet. Herb Ringer was a common man who never made the headlines. But he had a natural gift for heart-felt observation. He watched the world around him with a keen eye and saw things that most of us miss. Little details. Special moments. They all stayed with him. In some ways Herb’s life has resembled the fictional Forrest Gump’s. He seems to have been a first hand observer to some remarkable events in American history. We were talking about his old home in Ringoes, New Jersey one afternoon and I was trying to get an idea where Ringoes was located. : "Do you know where Flemington is?'' he asked. I didn’t but I’d heard of it. The great aviator Charles Lindberg lived near Flemington in the early 1930s, and it was from Lindberg’s rural home that his baby was kidnapped and murdered. The celebrated trial of the accused killer, Richard Bruno Hauptman, was held in Flemington. “Do you remember the trial?" I asked Herb. "Remember?" Herb said. "I was there. I was in the courtroom, just a few feet away from Hauptman." Herb remembered Lindberg too, sitting on the opposite side of the room, the anguish and sorrow still deeply etched in his face. "I can still see him looking so lonely.” In the 1930s he spent a lot of time in New York. He was one of the first to view the city from the top of the recently opened Rockefeller Center. Naturally, he still has the Grand Opening brochure. In 1947, the nation’s worst air disaster (at that time) occurred near Bryce Canyon National Park. Herb was camped nearby when the plane went down. He remembers the sirens and talking to the rangers who helped with the recovery of the bodies. He met the legendary Death Valley Scotty at a gas station in Beatty, Nevada. On a visit to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, he met and befriended Shorty Yarberry. If you’ve ever been to Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Canyon and marveled at the huge cottonwood trees that grow along Bright Angel Creek, keep in mind that Shorty planted those trees, more than 75 years ago. Among his thousands of photographs is a picture of the great river runner Georgie White. And on a movie shoot in the High Sierras, he has photographs of the actress Yvonne DeCarlo dancing lightly along the ledge of a clear mountain lake. Finer towns that were abandoned decades ago. Ultimately, it was the normal rhythms of life, the magnificent landscape and the ordinary people he met along the way that Herb recalls and appreciates the most. And more than just observing, Herb felt so much. We all fill our lives with memories of moments, but I don’t know how many of us can say those millions of moments had much meaning. For Herb every second of his life seems to have touched and moved him in some way. So while he had very little in the way of material wealth or financial success, he had one of the fullest lives of anyone I have ever known. For me, spending time with Herb Ringer was one of the most poignant and enriching experiences of my life In 1994, macular degeneration took away most of Herb’s eyesight and I was sure the loss of driving mobility would be the death of him. But he took the loss in stride, learned to walk the streets of Fallon, Nevada, and became a familiar figure to passersby. But in early 1998, his health began to fail rapidly. In July he gave up his beloved "Smoker" trailer, the place he had called home since 1954, and moved into a group retirement home. Within months, without his memories, his recollections, his treasured mementoes and his inablity to see and revel in his own past, Herb lost himself in the sterile hallways of a cold and impersonal retirement factory. Herb was not Herb anymore. On December 11, 1998, Herb passed on. He died on my birthday; it was a death in the family. Jim Stiles He hiked the abandoned beds of all the narrow gauge railroads of Colorado and picked up old spikes, splinters of ties, even shards of pottery from the old train If | was as old as Stiles, | could say | used to party with FRANKIE AVALON! (a Philly Favorite) WHIPPLE A AULT ea te & HEATING Servng Moab & Monticello since PHILLY STEAKS like our Philly-born KATHY FRESH SMOOTHIES/JUICES WRAP SANDWICHES ORGANIC ESPRESSO Pe) \tee elon Nira Pei aekerasy se aU PLUMBING HEATING YARD IRRIGATION SYSTEMS MOAB: 259.6997 MONTICELLO: 587.2864 |