Mike Greenlar and Sean Kirst, working a story together for the first time in a decade, at the Chimes Building. Credit: Courtesy of Paul Nojaim

I don’t remember every detail, or the date, of how this connection ended. I don’t remember the last story that Mike Greenlar and I worked on together in the old days, at the Syracuse Post-Standard and Syracuse.com — or even if we realized that it might be the last time we teamed up.

Over the years, there were just too many “jobs” side-by-side to sort out that way.

What I do recall vividly – time and time again – is stepping back to watch in admiration, as Mike — a photography master — did what he always does.

There was the day we traveled to a hillside in Tioga County, where Mike captured beautiful winter images of Max Leonard, an 87-year-old maple farmer who was still out in the woods, collecting syrup — often accompanied by a young grandson who stayed close to Max, after a family tragedy.

Alongside Mike, I scaled temporary ladders and scaffolding to reach a series of planks atop the bell tower of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, which we climbed in search of some staggering views during restoration work. High above downtown, in the bright sun and a skyline breeze, neither one of us wanted to go down.

I saw Mike’s patience and reverence amid the cattails at Onondaga Lake, where he captured image after image of bald eagles descending to capture fish, gliding in behind the power of that great and silent wing span. Mike immortalized what ought to be a constant source of awe in this town – that a majestic bird once on the brink of extinction has returned in force to a lake sacred to the Haudenosaunee.

At the Northside CYO on North Salina Street, Mike walked with gentle familiarity among the many regulars greeting Nasser Fitwi – a leader of the Eritrean community, a refugee who lost his vision in childhood and still managed to learn his way years later around the strange and snowy avenues of Syracuse.

Mike Greenlar at the absolute peak of the Chimes Building, camera in hand. Credit: Sean Kirst | Central Current

That kind of trust — built through time, respect and simple decency — is always in evidence, when you watch Mike Greenlar work.

“Mike is happiest when he is looking through a camera lens,” his wife, Linda Bogart-Greenlar, wrote to me in a text the other day, after I explained to her how I wanted to surprise her husband with this piece. Linda and Mike met in 1976, when they were both working with migrant farm workers.

Years later, when their daughter Marissa was little and drew pictures of her parents, she always portrayed her dad carrying a camera, as if it were a part of him.

Mike is a legend throughout the Upstate New York journalism community, a guy of giant conscience and patience, two traits — when combined with high-level talent, discipline and instinct — that make for soulful, sky-touching photography.

I learned a long time ago just how much those images matter, as a companion to any column.

An American bald eagle catches a fish in the waters of Onondaga Lake. Credit: Mike Greenlar | Central Current

Ten years ago, I left The Post-Standard after years of working as a writer and columnist, often alongside Mike. Within a few months, I was writing columns for The Buffalo News. Every now and then I’d run into Mike — we are both true believers, for instance, in the breakfast community at Stella’s — and we would talk about a million stories we wished that we could do, before saying to each other:

Maybe someday, we’ll work together again.

Life is life. We had jobs and obligations in different Upstate cities, hours apart. Neither of us was exactly young, and despite the many times we dreamed of it out loud, the odds of teaming up at some point seemed more and more remote.

As for Mike, I soon learned from mutual friends that he was facing one of the most harrowing challenges of his life — treatment for a rare form of cancer. During that period — not so long before he retired from The Post-Standard, where he was deeply loved — I would only see him around once in a great while. He had much bigger concerns in his life, but even then it seemed more important than ever to speak wistfully about the future, about the way things might work out.

You know, we’d say. Someday.

The months kept flipping by. Mike’s treatments were successful. To the delight of the legion of people who love him, he was soon out in the field again — especially at the lake with a community of like-minded photographers, inspired by the eagles. He and Michelle Gabel, another longtime friend of celestial talent with a camera, began taking images for Central Current, this new nonprofit news site in Central New York.

From time to time, we all would talk about it. Mike explained with passion just how rare the entire operation was, describing it as a new engine of community journalism, the kind of experiment that might happen only once in Syracuse — and how meaningful it would be if our paths converged in that newsroom, before the end of our careers. He spoke about some of the astounding opportunities involved with the Current, including magnificent images he brought home of bison in the snow at the Onondaga Nation.

And we both said of working together, once again:

Maybe. You never know.

Two buffalo joust in the snow. Credit: Mike Greenlar | Central Current

But I’m not sure we ever really saw it happening.

The calendar only accelerates, and every day seemed to diminish the possibility. A few months ago, when I found myself pushing toward 65 and a half, the folks who run the Current came to me with an unexpected offer that made a whole lot of sense. I took it. I retired from Buffalo with love and gratitude for all the people I know there, and I returned to this city — the community where my wife taught in the city schools and where my kids grew up — with a chance to write some Syracuse stories I’d daydreamed about for years.

Mike Greenlar on assignment, during his days with The Post-Standard, at the War Memorial Credit: Sean Kirst | Central Current

Such as: I’d noticed construction crews doing major restoration work at the iconic Chimes Building — a landmark of profound meaning in Syracuse — where rooftop scaffolding helped these workers reach and reveal some beautiful art deco detail, long concealed at the absolute peak.

The thing is, to do it right for my first true column for the Current, I’d need a photographer to go up there with me.

I had two incredible options, two photographers of staggering talent. Mike, being Mike, would have said: call Michelle. But Michelle was out of town.

So I knew just the guy.

Mike Greenlar, camera in hand, was waiting when I arrived at South Salina and West Onondaga streets. He was wearing a hard hat and construction vest even before we went into the Chimes, because — whatever the assignment — he’s always set to go. We stood there talking about the job and the building and who was coming and what we needed to do, and he suddenly broke out of business mode, put his hand on my arm and said what I was thinking:

“Did you ever really believe we’d be doing this again, together?”

I choked up. Whatever I replied, it came nowhere close to what I was actually feeling. I’ve had a couple days now, our story done, to contemplate the question, and I think my answer speaks to what Mike’s proven again and again over the years, in countless ways:

Once he picks up his camera, rule nothing out.

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Sean Kirst is a columnist with The Central Current. He has been an Upstate journalist for more than 50 years. He held his first reporting job as a teenager and worked for newspapers in Dunkirk, Niagara...