Sandra reviewed The Calumet Region by Gary Cialdella
Review of 'The Calumet Region' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Not just beautiful photographs. Not just interesting, moody pictures of ugly, blighted places. But within each photograph are in depth stories of a certain place in time, the people of that place, the homes inwhich these people live, the factories inwhich these people work, the trains for which these people stop and wait begrudgingly. I don't have to scrutinize these pictures for the stories to form. I could, myself, be just right around the corner of any one of these photos, looking out the picture window of a bungalow, driving by on some side street, tending a backyard garden. Or as a child, prowling and poking around the forbidden places... the undersides and footings of bridges, the elevated tracks of the South Shore commuter train, the dumping grounds and marshlands where we built forts and smoked our first cigarettes stolen from our parents.
I am a Calumet Region Rat, born …
Not just beautiful photographs. Not just interesting, moody pictures of ugly, blighted places. But within each photograph are in depth stories of a certain place in time, the people of that place, the homes inwhich these people live, the factories inwhich these people work, the trains for which these people stop and wait begrudgingly. I don't have to scrutinize these pictures for the stories to form. I could, myself, be just right around the corner of any one of these photos, looking out the picture window of a bungalow, driving by on some side street, tending a backyard garden. Or as a child, prowling and poking around the forbidden places... the undersides and footings of bridges, the elevated tracks of the South Shore commuter train, the dumping grounds and marshlands where we built forts and smoked our first cigarettes stolen from our parents.
I am a Calumet Region Rat, born and raised in East Chicago and living now in Chesterton, Indiana. Never far from the steel mills, never far from Lake Michigan, never far from the Grand Calumet or the Little Calumet Rivers. Never far from a shifting north wind off the lake, changing the weather on a storm front, bringing the sulfury smell of coke gas, naptha odor of oil refineries, or on some days, a burnt metal smell. Flying home from Arizona to South Bend airport we flew right over those rivers and mills I knew so well. With Lake Michigan a hazy darkness on the horizon, I was happy to see the distinctive Y shape of the Indiana Harbor ship canal, the BP (Standard Oil/Amoco) oil refinery, where for many years, my husband helped run the #4 Ultraformer, breaking cyclical carbon rings in huge reactors and yes Inland Steel (it will always be Inland to me) the main employer of my birth city where my father spent most of his working years, himself born and raised in the shadows of that mill.
This region shaped me. This region is still my home. Looking at the pictures I instinctively knew in which city they were taken. They are all very samey but they are all subtly different from each other. It is so familiar to me. Both good and bad, it is what shaped the person I am today. It is home.