The new book “A Matter of Time” (272 pages, 174 photos, hardcover, University of Oklahoma Press) featuring Ellen Klinkel’s black-and-white photographs may appear to be a coffee-table book — and a very good one.
But it’s the text by co-author Nick Gerlich that sets the book apart from typical Route 66 volumes, offering a modern sensibility while not ignoring the nostalgia that has captured generations of the Mother Road’s fans.
Subtitled “Route 66 Through the Lens of Change,” Klinkel and Gerlich may take differing approaches, but both converge as Route 66 aficionadoes. Klinkel’s interest in the historic highway was sparked during a journey on it in 2013, and she felt compelled to document lonely places with her camera “since they will be the first to disappear.” Gerlich, a marketing professor, grew up in the Chicago area and has spent almost all of his adult life just 20 minutes from the Mother Road in the Texas Panhandle.
“A Matter of Time” documents 101 places — many of them obscure and declining — along Route 66 with a 21st-century perspective. This passage provides insight into the book’s main title:
“This is our hope … that you will see Route 66 through new eyes, from the inside looking out. It is truly a matter of time, and also high time we paused long enough to ponder what has passed to get us where we are today.”
Klinkel’s introduction also provides insight, as well:
“It is a matter of time in a historic and photographic sense; a matter of being in time before a location fades away; a matter of being in time to capture the sunrise or sunset; a matter of having enough time and patience to wait for the right light and moment.”
Though many of the locations shown in the book likely will disappear in the coming years, the authors — citing the triple-whammy pop impact of John Steinbeck’s novel “The Grapes of Wrath,” the oft-covered hit song “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66” and the “Route 66” 1960s television drama — insist Route 66 itself never will disappear completely. “You can’t make something this significant, this huge, go away.”
Anyone who’s read Gerlich’s Facebook posts or his blog will hear his marketing professor’s voice and a knack for a well-turned phrase in this book.
In a segment about the small farming town of Nilwood, Illinois, with its name reportedly meaning “no wood” for train fuel at the key railroad stop between Chicago and St. Louis, is this musing about how it mirrors the decline of many Midwestern towns:
“From its beginning as an agricultural center more than 150 years ago to a speck on the road today, it appears the fire has indeed gone out. There is simply no wood.”
John’s Modern Cabins in mid-Missouri “had a ringside seat at the table of progress … as progress passed it by.” Jericho, Texas, notorious for its quagmire stretch on early Route 66, is “remembered for its muddied reputation.”
Gerlich’s marketing background is worth noting in his observations about the decaying billboards near the closed Fort Courage stop in Arizona — too cluttered with words, details and too-small letters, yet compelling because of their vivid colors and artistry. He says Whitehall Mercantile in Halltown, Missouri, hung in there for decades despite small-town groceries seldom ever stocking 1,000 items while suburban supermarkets typically offered 40,000.
Gerlich’s marketing eye doesn’t blunt his empathy. He writes about the run-down Rest Haven Motel in Afton, Oklahoma, that caters to poor, long-term residents:
“… It is where you see people living in a place you could only photograph because it is in such disrepair that you realize you’ve got it pretty good after all.”
Klinkel has impeccable timing or great patience (or both) with her photography. Many shots contain terrific images of stormy or wispy clouds in the sky, including a memorable one of monsoon thunderheads in the distance behind TeePee Curios in Tucumcari, New Mexico.
One of her most breathtaking shots is a spiderweb in the foreground of the closed Gasconade River Bridge near Hazelgreen, Missouri. It’s another reminder about how much this historic span is in jeopardy.
Another striking image is a leaning, repurposed road sign in Texola, Oklahoma, that tells mileages to Amarillo and Shamrock but once gave distances to Vici and Arnett, a couple of Texas Panhandle towns well off Route 66’s path.
One photo that will spark curiosity is a pair of left-behind shoes in an open window of the abandoned Desert Sun Motel in Grants, New Mexico, that apparently has been taken over by vagrants.
“A Matter of Time” provides a visual feast and words that will linger in the brain.
Highly recommended.
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