{If you are late to the series I’m writing during Lent 2024; I’ll fill you in on the theme this year: “room.”}

Yesterday, I wrote about a seminary professor’s office, a room I found unusually dark for such space. Today, a different kind of dark room, the kind where photos come through chemicals and rinses and special papers…and darkness. This one was in the TUB. The Titan Union Building, Westminster College, Pa. I spent many hours in that room, alone, in the dark.

Of course it wasn’t totally dark; there was a red light that illuminated one’s work space without ruining the processing of black and white film. The college newspaper and yearbook photographers not only documented campus events with school cameras or their own, but deveoped the film and printed the photos on site. That was especially helpful for the weekly “Holcad” newspaper. Film processing by mail would have delayed publication for a week or more in our small campus town. But working in that small basement space, we could take pictures at a Wednesday afternoon event and the photos would appear in the Friday paper. I know this sounds so primitive to generations used to the instant digital photography that even phones can accomplish, but back then (the early 1960s) the smelly, dark, and often dank space filled with film cannisters, trays, chemicals, an enlarger, and strings holding drying prints was both a necessity and a creative outlet.

I got my first camera for Christmas one year. I might have been 11 or 12. I graduated from one simple camera to others more sophisticated, but always very affordable for a kid with an after school job. By college time, I had a 35mm rangefinder camera, a Taron Unique. See? Not exactly a Nikon or Hasselblad. When I was signing up for extracurricular activities, I volunteered to take pictures for the “Holcad” and also for the yearbook, the “Argo.”

The darkroom was just off the Holcad office space and an upperclassman (we used male terminology back then) showed me the ropes. Well, the darkroom equipment. I had had some limited experience developing film back home, but the school darkroom was a revelation! We could print on different papers, blow up photos for detail, creatively crop our images, and then, the best part…the work would be published for all to see. And to ignore, for the most part. Most readers took the illustrations for granted, though on rare occasions someone might tell us, “Hey! Great shot of the game last week!”

My pictures appeared in all four yearbooks of my college career, as well as in countless weekly campus papers. I had a title: “Photo Editor.” Now, decades later, those of us who survive (!) may look at those photos with fondness, finding memories unlocked and re-lived: our college years, the games, the social events, academics, classmates.

One of my photos, taken from the Argo office:
stunned students gathered to listen to car radio accounts of the Kennedy assassination

In my junior year, I was named co-editor of the Argo. Senior Peggy Baird and I were responsible for the annual record of campus life, with Peggy doing print content and me providing photo illustrations. It was a proud moment. And very short-lived. I was in the process of flunking out. And leaving Peggy holding the bag. I mean, the book.

Two students gaze at the campus lake, with two spies on the right (from the Argo)

My studies suffered due to my poor stewardship of time. I was doing radio on the college station in addition to the hours spent shooting photos and developing and printing film. I’ve said that my desk, books, and classnotes were all in “upstairs” rooms and the radio station and darkroom were in the basements of college buildings. The twain didn’t meet. My studies hit bottom. During my first two years of college, I went on academic probation twice. And in my junior year, strike three came.

I certainly questioned my call to ministry when I had to leave my studies. Without my academic deferment, I was nearly drafted into the Army during the Viet Nam conflict, but escaped that situation, barely. I flunked again, this time my physical. Joan and I had been dating, and that semester away from school put a hold on our developing romance. I had begun a Greek class in my junior year, in preparation for seminary, so the prof kindly sent me assignments to do at home. That didn’t work. What worked was a temporary job my Dad got me at IBM for the months away from school. I didn’t see my future there, and was determined to mend my ways if given another chance.

I always share this predicament with youth groups. Yes, kids, I flunked out of college. I’m way past being embarrassed by it. It happened. It was a turning point in my life, and after a semester out of school, I was re-admitted and stayed clear of the darkroom. I may have done some more radio, but limited my extracurriculars to that one activity. The Argo got published without me, and the Holcad had other camera-toting students. And I studied. I’d love to say that I became a successful scholar that last semester. No. Just my average self. Missing that semester meant not graduating with Joan and my class. But after two courses in summer school, the college mailed me a diploma. (I took the equivalent of two semesters of German in those twelve weeks, plus an audio-visual course. Guess which came in handy later?)

Next would come three years of seminary. There was a darkroom there too. Someplace. I never asked where it was. Didn’t want to know.

And here I am.