FACTS

I was born on the fourth of October, 1939, in Louisville, KY. In 1946 my parents, my sister and I moved to Miami, FL; we all moved back to Louisville in 1952. I was drafted into the army for two years in 1962, spending the majority of that time at Ft. Campbell, KY.

I married Sarah Catherine Rogers in January of 1965; our daughter, Lee Margaret Kimmel was born in July. Sarah and I divorced in 1977 and the following year I moved to New York City and married Mary Carolyn Lee. Later that year I moved to Tallahassee, FL.

In January 1979, I moved to Marengo, IN; in August I moved to Jackson, MS. In 1982 I moved to Denver, Co. and married Mary Stuart Baker Pike Aszman on Derby Day, 1983. In 1991 we moved to Savannah, GA, then moved to Albany, NY in 1996.

In 1997 I moved to Stuart, FL, then to Evansville, IN. In 1998 I rejoined Mary Stuart in Denver. The following year I moved to Vero Beach, FL and we were divorced. In 2004 I moved to Cincinnati, OH.

From 2007 to the present I have alternated living in Cincinnati, Vero Beach and Louisville.

From 1964 to 2004 I was employed full-time for 32 years in the newspaper business and eight years as a land surveyor, until retirement in 2004. From 2004 to 2010 I worked as a freelance photographer, a surveyor, a roofer, a prep cook and a groundskeeper.


NEWSPAPERS

Newspapers made me what I am today. Don't laugh, it could have been worse.

I could have gone on working as a surveyor, indefinitely, mostly mapping out subdivisions, remaining a blue collar tradesman, one more provincial among many.

But I stumbled into the newspaper business by accident. Four years out of the army I answered an ad in the paper's classifieds seeking a copywriter in the advertising department. A couple of weeks later I got a letter asking whether I could come down to the paper for an interview.

Hell yes, even though I'd have to call in sick to the engineering company I was working for. Hell yes.

A battery of proctored tests was administered in a closet-sized booth, one of several used for this purpose, before I was directed upstairs to an office for an interview. The interviewer was chic, in a quiet way, 40 or so, well groomed and well dressed, and quite good-looking.

We chatted for a few minutes, then she had me sketch out a dummy ad and compose the copy for it at a large table in the middle of a large room with eight or so people working away in their separate cubicles. A half-hour later the interviewer returned and we exchanged a few more pleasantries while she looked over my sham ad, offering a couple of comments/suggestions, before sending me on my way.

I left with a vague feeling of unease, of something missing. I pretty much concluded that the whole thing had been a fizzle, a waste of most of a day, a fake sick day wasted. But mostly I forgot all about it, returning to "my place," my station in life, resigned.

A couple of months later I received another letter from the paper inquiring whether I would like to come back downtown and interview in a different department, the promotions department. I didn't know what a promotion department did, besides the obvious, advancing the product, the paper, but I was still ready to try something besides surveying.

After five uneventful months in the promotions department I backed into the news department via a fluke and an incredibly lucky break. I met several staff photographers while helping them prepare their entries for various national contests, and more importantly, the morning paper's picture editor, a man named Gordon Harding.

Harding was looking for a successor, somebody to handle the everyday chore of running the daily picture desk operation while he concentrated on spearheading both papers' nascent color operations. And, incidentally, getting out from under the relentless grind of running the daily desk, a real monkey-on-the-back deal. But I didn't catch onto that for awhile.

Harding must have been at least semi-desperate to pick me, because I was woefully unprepared, not to say unqualified. I had no journalism experience except for writing a few articles for my college newspaper, and he must have known he'd have a hard time convincing his boss that my taking his place was a good idea. But then another lucky break fell into my lap in the guise of office history and politics, of which I knew nothing at the time.

Harding's boss was the managing editor, 42-year-old George Gill, who fancied himself a hard-boiled, no-nonsense newsman and executive, which turned out to be pretty accurate. Gill's job was to supervise the content and style of the morning paper and mask his annoyance at the occasional interference of his boss, a 65-year-old executive bully named Norman Isaacs.

The frequently blustery Isaacs --- often referred to as Stormin' Norman --- was no friend of the photo department, which served both papers, largely because of his dislike of the photo director, Billy Davis, one of very few true gentlemen I've ever met. But Isaacs was one of the top news executive in the country and answered only to the papers' millionaire owner and publisher, Barry Bingham, a savvy newsman and executive himself.

Harding was trying to sell Gill on the idea that I was such a diplomat, getting along with people so well, that I'd be a natural advocate for staff-produced photos, "selling" the paper's various section editors on the merits of the pictures I'd produce and encouraging them to use them well.

He was basing that on my record as a functionary in my five-month stint in the promotions department, where it was so boring there was little to do besides being polite to the point of being unctuous. After only a few weeks of my riding the picture desk we all learned what a mis-characterization that was.

Harding was determined though and kept plugging away, and after a few weeks coerced Gill into a meeting where George could size me up and approve of this job switch --- or not. Also attending the meeting would be the assistant director of photography, Bill Strode, which turned out to be another unforeseen stroke of luck for me.

Gill set the meeting for lunch at a semi-expensive restaurant where he could cover things with his company credit card, underscoring just who was in charge. He conducted things in a brusque, almost peevish fashion, alternatively questioning Harding and me as to just why this was a good idea and he didn't hide his skepticism about it.

But Gill liked Harding and he didn't like Strode. That antipathy dated back to at least the mid-60s when Gill was Sunday editor and Strode kept sending back pictures he was making in Vietnam with sketchy and confusing caption information, making Gill's work much more difficult. Plus, Strode was known to be something of a pet of Isaacs's, which was not about to endear him to George Gill.

None of this was known to my neophyte self at the time of course, but after awhile even I could tell Gill was giving Strode short shrift in the proceedings at lunch. Strode was a slippery and ambitious character, obvious enough in his political connivances to further rub Gill the wrong way.

Harding was in his mid-thirties, a quiet, plain-spoken man who'd been at the paper less than a year, recruited as the picture editor from an assistant's position at the Chicago Daily News by Isaacs. Whether Isaacs intended all along to pit Harding and Strode as political adversaries within the paper or not, that's the way it turned out before too long.

Harding was in the news department and answered to Gill, Strode in the photo department, answering, on paper, to director of photography Billy Davis. And that corporate dynamic was the way things played out during lunch.

Gill questioned me thoroughly, a little relentlessly, about whether I could do the job, maintaining his skepticism throughout, but not shutting off any possibilities. Strode kept carping, correctly, on the fact that I'd never been a photographer or in fact had any real newspaper experience. Harding chimed in quietly from time to time emphasizing that photography skills didn't really matter that much, appreciation and coordinating the flow of photos was what counted, and I'd learn that in short order.

Harding won. After a couple of weeks, Gill gave his blessing to the deal. Isaacs must have been out of town or something because he didn't participate or comment, let alone interfere, at least not overtly.

I moved into the news department and onto the picture desk, a life-changing promotion that wouldn't have happened if not for several unlikely coincidences falling into place.

And I'd never have moved into the photo department a couple of years later and become a staff photographer at one of the top-ten newspapers in the country, one which prized and championed photographs, if not for the pure, inadvertent luck of being in the right place at the right time.

And I'd never have moved to New York and Mississippi, Colorado and Florida, Indiana and Georgia and Cincinnati and made all those memories that are the best part of what's left after all these years.

But then like I always told mom, I'd rather be lucky than good, a direct quote I lifted from the late, great Vernon "Lefty" Gomez, eccentric southpaw mainstay of the DiMaggio Yankees, when baseball was the national pastime and you listened to it on the radio.


AH, LOUISVILLE

in my dream memory
we're dancing easy
to bus parsons' jukebox
up on river road,
past the boat club,
across the concrete slab
beside the river,
all to ourselves,
this afternoon
when a man loves a woman,
it's spring
cottonwood tufts
coasting down
the breeze





BACK TO TOP

ME AND KIMMEL

To my knowledge, Kimmel and I hold the world record for having worked together at the most newspapers. Five newspapers in five states. The first time was in the 70's in the photo department at the Courier-Journal. In 1978, I left Louisville to be DOP in Tallahassee, and they happened to have a copy editor job open. Frank had no experience as a copy editor, but was ready to leave the CJ. He was smart and had language skills, so he got the job.

In 1979, I followed my wife Mary Jo to California and Frank headed for Marengo, Indiana. We didn't hook up again until 1985. I was working as a computer programmer in Silicon Valley and expected to continue in that effort. Frank was now the DOP at the Rocky Mountain news, and he called and offered me a job as a photographer, so I returned to photojournalism.

Then the rat bastard quit as DOP and somehow I ended up replacing him and he replaced me as a photographer. In 1993, Mary Jo and I were sharing a job as Graphics Editor of the Evansville Courier. We needed a photographer, so we called Frank, he was available, and he joined us there.

In 2001, I was AME/Graphics for the Cincinnati Post. There was a picture editor job open; I called Frank and asked him if he was interested. By now we knew each other pretty well, so he accepted the job without even coming to visit the paper. No one should be too surprised that not visiting the paper was a bad idea. He lasted two weeks. But he was there long enough to coin a new term for old photographers, which most of us were — Photosaurs. We even made Photosaur hats.

The Post was the fifth paper where we worked together.


THE LAST MONTHS

For years, he went back and forth from Louisville to Florida to Memphis to Cincinnati and back. When he was in Louisville, he often lived with Shannon Webb. Shannon is the son of Jon Webb, a former C-J photographer who was one of the group of us who drove management crazy. We were pain in the ass prima donna photographers and management was strait laced. Oil and water. Frank lived with Shannon off and on, but Shannon treated him like a member of his family, dubbed him "Uncle Frank."

We had weekly lunches with our friend John Filiatreau. But John died, and the lunches became more irregular. Bill Pike, who had been married to Mary Stuart, Frank's third wife, started going to lunch with us.

Then the Covid years began, so I didn't see him much.

The last time he left for Florida, in September of 2020, I didn't expect him back. But he did return in May of '21. He had given his car to the maintenance man at his apartment house because he said he (Frank) kept running into things with it. Shannon went to Florida and brought him home.

Frank was having trouble walking, and was using a walker. And he had bad arthritis. His right hand was scrunched up and pretty much useless, so he'd eat with his left hand, which shook a bit, so eating was a problem, which made him embarrassed, and subsequently cranky.

One week followed another, and Frank had stopped leaving the house. At some point Bill and I made serious efforts to get him to lunch, demanding that he get up and go out. That worked a couple of times, but he was having a harder time walking.

Then the first of '22 rolled around. At the end of February I found out that Frank had contracted Covid, even though he was fully vaccinated. His symptoms were flu-like but he also got pneumonia. He recovered from both and was sent to rehab where the main goal was to get him walking on his own again. I visited him there; on one visit he got up out of his chair and walked on his own, without his walker, to the other side of the room. I thought that was very positive. Shannon was amazed the he'd done that.

I took him food, homemade cookies and vegetable soup and once I brought his favorite dish from one of our regular restaurants. But he didn't eat much. He never drank as much water as the rehab people wanted.

Rehab released him and he went home. When he got home he was still only about 2/3 normal mentally, not his usual sharp and crude self, but he steadily got better. He wasn't good about phone calls, and once told me if he wanted to talk to me, he'd call. So if I called and he didn't answer, I didn't worry. When he did answer, daytime television was on in the background, very loud, and usually he would curse his smartphone for being difficult to use.

But as the days passed, he was getting his sharpness back and sounding like his old self, though he still could hardly get around. One day on the phone he said he'd give me $100 to come hook up his DVD player. He had a box of some of his old favorites and wanted to watch something other than cooking shows. His technological skills were limited to the On/Off button on his remote, so he needed help.

So I went over to his house on a Friday and hooked it up, but I couldn't make it work. A call to Spectrum, the cable provider, finally found the problem.

We needed the TV remote to access the DVD player which was hooked up to the, duh, TV. Of course his remote was nowhere to be found.

I told him I could get him a replacement remote for less than $20, which would solve the problem. He had talked about getting a new television, and bitched that it used to be you could buy a new TV and have it delivered and set up and all you had to do was turn it on. I suggested that for enough money that could probably happen even now. That started him complaining that Shannon wouldn't shop anywhere but CostCo and he didn't think they delivered.

Then he said he wanted to go to the liquor store. A friend of his told him she had a nightcap every night; it made her sleep better. He wasn't sleeping well, so he wanted to try it. But when he started to go to his bedroom to change, he had a hard time walking, so we decided I'd go for him. He wanted the cheapest bourbon I could find, and some Coke (as in Coca-Cola).

I came back and put everything away. He still had to decide if he wanted a new remote, which I could easily get for him, or a new television, which would be more complicated. He didn't want to decide yet, so I left it at that. I thought he was fine, considering. He seemed to be a sound mind in a body that was failing him. He said his usual goodbye, "Ciao, baby", and I went home.

That's the last time I saw him.

The next Tuesday, Shannon came home from work and found that Frank had fallen. He wasn't eating well or getting enough fluids, so he was dehydrated and weak. Because of that, they decided he should go to the hospital. Their plan was that he'd go to the hospital for a few days of unnecessary tests, get hydrated and come back a new man.

When Shannon talked to Frank the next day, he said Frank was sounding awful, very weak, probably a recurrence of pneumonia. Frank said they'd found a blood clot in his lung and the prognosis wasn't great. The doctor called later that evening and said Frank's oxygen level had dropped into the low seventies. In the morning, they sedated and intubated him. He never regained consciousness.

Shannon called me that morning and told me of the sudden crash and that he didn't expect Frank to last until noon. At 11:00 a.m. Thursday, April 21, Shannon messaged me. "Uncle Frank is no more."

Ciao, baby.

TRIBUTES

"If you knew him, you know that the world is a far less interesting place without him. This is a superb piece, which brought a tear to my eye.

"Kimmel was part Damon Runyon character, part Hunter S. Thompson character, 100% his own man. For decades, his constant companion was Randy, the trophy jackalope. Randy was a taxidermied - if that's a word - jackrabbit head, mounted on a plaque like a big game trophy. He had antlers. Randy would send picture postcards of himself from around the country, and in this way, one could sort of keep track of Kimmel.

"My first Louisville boyfriend - who became a lifelong friend-friend - was photographer Ford Reid. He and Kimmel were kind of cosmic twins. Both of them had NASA-level bullshit detectors and a cellular-level loathing for officiousness, pretentiousness, and authority in general. Irreverent doesn't begin to describe the attitude. Subversive is closer.

"Long before the Trumpocalypse, all you had to do mention Richard Nixon to them, then stand back and enjoy the show. Ford died weeks before the 2016 election (which would have killed him in any case). In the same way that I believe in Doggie Heaven, I believe that Reid has been waiting for Kimmel in Iconoclast Heaven - with an everlasting supply of whiskey and weed. Let the ranting begin.
   —-Elinor Brecher, long-time friend


"I feel the same about Frank in death as I did in life.  I'm intimidated.  What words are good enough to remember Frank?   I read what others have written about him and I realize that my awe of him kept me from getting to know him.   

"A vibrant man who filled a room with his presence, he was also a flawed man.  But the difference between him and most of us is that he wore his flaws on the outside.   To know something about the heart of the man look at his pictures.  The ones I remember are gentle and graceful and filled with truth.   When he "cross-fertilized" from Picture Editor to Photographer, my eyes were opened to the brilliance of the man.  
 
"He was funny; and smart; and bluntly honest about himself and what he saw around him.    Frank was the perfect name for him.    

"He raged.  A lot.  He was outrageous. A lot.  Yet, he treated me with kindness and perhaps respect.  Those were gifts I did/do not take lightly.   

"I visited Frank a few months before he died.  As we talked about our lives, I was shocked to realize he and I were together at the CJ for only six years.  His impact feels bigger than such a short space of time would suggest.  That won't be erased with his passing."
   —-Pam Spaulding, worked with Frank in Louisville

"In the newsroom, he was a relentless advocate for photojournalism. His blunt manner didn't always go over well with other editors, but he was committed to producing the best possible newspaper every day. I learned early on that if you made a mistake, or error in judgement, you'd hear about it in no uncertain terms whether you were a photographer, reporter or editor.

"Encyclopedic is a good word for his music knowledge.

"John Prine, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Steve Goodman, Ry Cooder, JJ Cale, Johnny Cash (and his daughter, Rosanne), Guy Clark, Bob Seeger were just some of his mainstays. He was also a big fan of jazz from Miles Davis, Art Pepper and Chet Baker to Eliane Elias and Madeleine Peyroux.

"Frank was the best mentor any photographer, or picture editor, could ever hope for. Mostly, he was a great friend for 40+ years. I miss him terribly."
   --Jeff McAdory, worked with Frank in Jackson


"I want to thank you for bringing Frank into my life. The two of you had a bigger influence on my love of photography, music and life than I will ever be able to put into words. I will be forever grateful to both of you. Of course, you both contributed to my ability to tolerate morons much harder..."
   --Jim Merithew, worked with Frank in Evansville


"I focus on remembering him as he was for most of the years I knew him - eloquent, insightful, funny and irreverent. My first encounter with him was in the old Rocky office. We sat back to back and he was ranting about a stupid photo assignment. He stood up and kicked one of those tall metal trash cans, lofting it into the air. I was terrified. He saw my face and mumbled "Sorry." 

"I've been warmed by the memories people have posted, especially those from people he mentored. Years ago I asked him how he knew what do to bring out the best in a young photographer. Although he was so good at it, he said he didn't know and had never thought about it. I didn't entirely believe him - I'd watched him bring out the best in the Rocky photographers and he always seemed to know whether a private kind word or a public excoriation or a great assignment would work best. But maybe he just had the perfect instinct and didn't have to think about it.

"At some point Frank became a photographer again. Reporters really liked working with him. He and assorted reporters, photographers and a few editors were on a softball team together and they had a great time. Games were played in a rough section of Denver and the audience included drunks who threw things at the players. That delighted Frank.

"He tended to stalk around the office, sometimes intent on a vision of what journalism should be, sometimes furious about some "fools' " decision, sometimes with a grin over some prank or triumph."
   —-Deborah Frazier, worked with /Frank in Denver


"... I would first and foremost call him simply a true force of nature, a person so unique and individual that, despite the thousands of people I know, no one makes his measure. His energy was enormous – and effortlessly shared! His sense of humor could instantly fill a room. He could transform the dust of the most minor lint or the seriousness of a major crisis into a moment of explosive joy, possibility or determination. Frank was a warrior without a shield, a fierce defender of truth and fairness who could not, would not suffer fools. He demanded the genuine. But if you were, his kindness was the most beautiful tonic one could even hope for.

"Frank was all-in for life! He had no selfishness or greed of any kind that I ever saw. Audaciously, at his core, he only expected the best from himself and everyone else. It seems to me that his underlying premise was that life had to be a win/win experience, an exploration, rather than a win/lose one. For Frank, life was not a mission for success; it was somehow just a roller coaster of an experience to be in the middle of, to saturate oneself with.

"I think we love him so much because all his many mercurial moments and times of private nadir were part of his hope that we each be all we are and treasure the moments of life. He had his preferences but I just never felt like he was keeping score – for himself or on anybody else. Anybody could play in his sandbox if they (1) paid attention to what was happening around them, (2) were true to themselves and (3) didn't – intentionally or not – act like an ass to others.

"He was so talented, handsome and smart that he could have become anything. He decided he had to be Frank...

"To say Frank will be missed is sort of like just saying the universe is big. Now there's just a huge hole in it and we have to continue to carry Frank's life force forward in our own lives. Fortunately he was so wealthy in that way that I think, after we get over the grief, his joy and passion will have prepared us to find our joy, to look for our best and to keep travelin' while holding him in our hearts.
   —-Sandra Eisert, competing picture editor at the Courier-Journal & Times


"John Filiatreau said it best: 'If you look up the word 'curmudgeon' in the dictionary, there will  be a little picture of Frank next to the definition.' Frank was indeed a curmudgeon. He could cuss and fuss with the best of them and enjoyed doing so.

"The topic that most often set Frank off was American stupidity. the person who most often set him off was Donald Trump.

"I recall during one of our Thursday afternoon visits for  beer and fish sandwiches at O'Shea's that Frank launched into a glorious 30-minute diatribe about Trump's  nonpareil stupidity. Nearly everyone at the bar  broke out into spontaneous applause when he finished. A couple of guys bought Frank a beer.

"Frank had a  brain. He was impressive when he used it.

"Frank was a great reader of magazines -- the New Yorker, Harpers, The Atlantic, the New York Review of Books. He read a lot and remembered what he read. He often spent whole days reading.

"Frank was modest. He usually tried to deflect attention away from himself. Typically, he did not want a funeral or a celebration of his life. He wanted to be left alone, a curmudgeon to the end."
   —-Bill Pike, old friend in Louisville


"Then there was his memory -- where it was exceptionally sharp was major league baseball, i.e., the era when he was growing up. When the great Frank Robinson died a year or two ago I emailed him to let him know (as i did when other sports heroes of our earlier lives had died, i.e., Johnny U.), he replied with clear recall of Robinson's days as a Cincinnati Red.

"Like me (we discussed this MANY times), he believed the 60's to early 70's were baseball's greatest days.

"40+ yr old anecdote . . . our other pal John Flynn was equally adept w/baseball lore; 1 day in Jackson I was home and those 2 were hanging out at 1 of their houses. I don't know how it got started (this was era when we ONLY had rotary dial phones) but I began calling their phone and would say only 2 words, i.e., Ernie Banks, then hang up; immediately, one of them called me back w/only 2 words, i.e., Willie McCovey. It swiftly moved to a category of really good but forgotten players, ie Glen Beckert, Johhny Roseboro . . . . anyways, this went on for perhaps 1/2 hour, back 'n forth, only an ex-player's name, then, Click!

"I then got in my car, picked up some beer and went to their place. This went on longer in person as we named more and more obscure players (Tom Tresh, Ed Kranepool), 1 of the 2 listeners would reward the speaker with, "Ooo, good one" if he had come up w/a real gem of obscurity.

"It was a hoot and we were laughing silly + THOSE 2 OLDER COOTS WERE SURPRISED TO STUMBLE ON A GUY YOUNGER THAN THEM WHO KNEW SOME BASEBALL.

"I can tell you of MANY photographers, in Jackson, who benefited greatly from his experience and knowledge . . . Karen Newsom, Paul Beaver, Chris Todd, George Kochianic, David Frank, Laura Lynn Fitzler, Jim Estrin, others . . . the photos in the paper — and especially ones accompanying lengthy investigative packages that the M.E., Steve Fagan, was the impetus for -- were stellar.

"I can tell you, also, what you must already know: he was a loyal friend, a real fine guy, a sardonic sense of humor, a what-you-see-is-what-you-get type person, give you the shirt off his back.
   —-Ted Cilwick, worked with Frank in Jackson

"We hired Kimmel in Evansville to work a 3/2 shift, part-time photographer and part-time picture editor.

"He did something special with the staff.  We wanted only a competent editor; whatever else was fine.  What he did with the photo staff was far and away above our wildest expectations.  He did what we didn't do.  He hung out with them.

"But you couldn't sell his pictures short.  His work on a series about death and dying had great depth and feeling.  It showed what he's capable of. He was just beginning to see pictures from his heart.

"He connected with the reporters; they loved him.  The reporter who worked with him on the death and dying project nearly wept at his departure.  He set an example for the whole newsroom in the way he operated as a photojournalist.

"The other photographers loved him.  They were stoked just at the possibility of having him around.  He energized them.

"He's the best mind I've ever worked with.  He had greatness in him that had never been tapped, that was frustrated by years of working with bosses who had no heart.
   —-Bryan Moss