Thirty Years Ago, I Celebrated My Five-Year Anniversary As A Journalist – In Florida, Taking Photographs (As Usual)

From the Editor—

As an observer, I tend to find “anniversaries” of this sort awkward at best.

That said, this coming Sunday will mark the completion of our thirty-fifth consecutive year as a locally-owned business in Saline. August 12, 1983 was a Friday and we filed paperwork for “D² Enterprises” — better known locally as Saline Journal parent d2 Saline — with the office of the Washtenaw County Clerk. It was during the lunch hour. I listed my address as the Sheffield condo where I was living off of Harris Street, across from Brecon Park. Driving a 1960 Ford Falcon, we celebrated by eating at the White Castle on Packard. [1,2]

Two years prior, I had graduated from Saline High School as part of the Class of ’81, having gone on to prepare for the launch of D² Enterprises during the summer after my Sophomore year at the University of Michigan. If you’d have asked me to describe my work in those days, my response would have been “photojournalist” as opposed to “journalist.” That’s not to say I didn’t write; I completed my bachelor’s degree with studies under Dr John Aldridge during his tenure as Director of the Hopwood Program. Rather, I was simply too business- and motivation-minded to fit as a square peg in the round hole of journalism school. [3,4]

That hasn’t changed.

D² Enterprises also had an advantage in having our own darkroom, processing all of our own black and white work. This maximized control over final product as well as turn-around times. It proved key in closing national distribution deals, including candidate appearances in Ann Arbor during the 1984 presidential campaign. [5]

My coverage of the 1985 Airship Industries emergency landing at Ann Arbor Airport continues to be one of our most requested historical images. I’d like to attribute this to the quality of photographs I took using my 1947 Graflex Pacemaker 23 Speed Graphic press camera fitted with Kodak Ektar 101mm f/4.5 lens. But it’s equally if not more likely that my work showed a story that other reporting missed. [6,7,8]

The Goodyear America was already on site for a scheduled mooring when the Airship Industries blimp came in without engines due to a drive shaft failure. During a bit of background research, I’d found out that Goodyear had a policy of never co-locating with competitor aircraft — primarily as a means of maximizing the marketing value of its stops. So this was history. Unfortunately, the other crew used their time on the ground to tell extoll the virtues of their propulsion technology to that of the “outdated” America. [9]

Goodyear responded by upping their flight schedule and apparently buzzing the grounded blimp of their competitor. When asked to respond to criticisms of their power and steering functions, they never argued. Rather, I heard them simply say, “We’re flying and they’re not.”

In 1986 I bought-out my original partner and became sole owner of D² Enterprises. On January 28 of that year, Space Shuttle Challenger had exploded 73 seconds after launch, killing all seven astronauts on impact when their crew compartment subsequently hit the ocean surface below. NASA grounded the fleet for over two years. Ironically, the United States Postal Service provided a special “First Day of Issue” postmark of August 12, 1983 tied to Challenger flight STS-8. [10,11]

With this in mind, I covered the “Return to Flight” launch of Discovery from the press beach at Cape Canaveral just after the five-year anniversary of D² Enterprises in 1988. [12]

Those who’ve followed my work for the last three-and-a-half decades will notice an absense of references to any work I did during this period for our former local stalwart The Saline Reporter. I figure you already know that D² Enterprises stepped up to photograph the nascent Varsity Blues performances during the summer of 1984, or that we captured images of Saline Mayor Donald Shelton during his run for the Michigan 52nd District seat in 1986. Neither is it any longer impressive to cite aerial photographs that we took of the first building where we had office space on Monroe Street: Drones have rendered such vantage points blasé. [13,14,15,16,17,18]

And surely if I had led with the Saline Pre-Prix races through downtown and Michigan Avenue, wouldn’t you have to wonder if I’d ever made the effort to step back to get a bigger perspective of the world in which Saline fits as a centerpoint? [19,20]

Notwithstanding personal aversions to the reversed focus that comes with acknowledging my own anniversary here, I know that we wouldn’t be here these now thirty-five years on without the loyal following of d2 Saline customers and Saline Journal readers. Thank you for supporting us through seven five-year anniversaries now.

I am as excited to be a working journalist today as I was when I started in 1983. I drive a much newer car for my work, of course — having upgraded to a 1990 Cadillac Allanté (still in black). [21]

References

1. “Brecon Park” Saline.
2. “Flashback 34 Years Downtown to Saline’s Christmas Parade in 1983” Dell Deaton (November 23, 2017) Saline Journal.
3. “John W Aldridge papers: 1943-2007 (bulk 1950-2000)” Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.
4. “LSA: English, Language and Literature: Hopwood Awards Program” University of Michigan.
5. “In Politics And Journalism, ‘History’ Begins Where The Presenting Party Says It Does (If Audiences Allow That)” Dell Deaton (July 27, 2018) Saline Journal.
6. “Ann Arbor Airport” City of Ann Arbor, Michigan.
7. “Pacemaker Speed Graphic” Graflex.
8. “Graflex Century Graphic, with Kodak Ektar 101mm f4,5” Norm Roberts V (January 20, 2017) Fifth Photography.
9. “The Goodyear Blimp, Today and Yesterday” Airships.
10. “Report to the President by the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident” William P Rogers, Chairman (June 6, 1986) NASA.
11. “August 12, 1983: Kennedy Space Center” d2 Postcards.
12. “Space Shuttle: Mission Archives, STS-26” NASA.
13. “Saline Reporter” (June 22, 1958 to April 3, 2014) CMU: Central Michigan University — Digital Michigan Newspapers.
14. Saline Varsity Blues (home page).
15. Untitled (July 25, 1984) The Saline Reporter.
16. “Busy Signal” Gail Slaughter (August 1, 1984) The Saline Reporter.
17. “O’Connor Relishes Third Win” The Saline Reporter.
18. “Aerial Photograph of Saline Die Cast Facility on Monroe Street in 1985” Dell Deaton (October 24, 2017) Saline Journal.
19. “Exactly Thirty Years Ago, Saline Hosted Its First ‘Pre-Prix’ Race” Dell Deaton (June 4, 2016) Saline Journal.
20. “Mayor Brian Marl Dedicated Historic ‘Pre-Prix’ Race Print to City of Saline” Dell Deaton (August 23, 2016) Saline Journal.
21. Allanté-XLR Chapter of the Cadillac & LaSalle Club (home page).