Regardless of whether one lives in the upper Midwest or in Northern California, autumn can be a nostalgic time of the year.  Maybe it is the lull just before the season change that prompts the mood...the approaching cold, rain, and snow remind us that change is inevitable.

That said, autumn is also my favorite time of the year.  I know that part of my love for this season stems from the years of living in a very cold climate...that change from hot and humid weather whether it was day or night...to warm days and cool nights.

Growing up in Northern Wisconsin with a lake at my backdoor...and with having a boat...plus having acres if not miles of farmland and woods to explore, it was a magical time for a young boy...then a teenager...and finally a young adult.  To this day I can feel the sun and smell the warmth of the fall air which is a blend of dry leaves and grasses along with a hint of chill in the wind.

Frequently, in the fall I would take the family dog with me...well she went with me everywhere I went.  Period.  She and I would hop into the boat and take it out on the lake.  Her name was Lassie and I loved her dearly...the love was returned unconditionally...and all those fall afternoons the two of us in the boat would explore the bays, the beaches, the inlets, the outlets, or simply rest the oars and let the boat drift aimlessly on the sparkling water while I napped in the bottom of the boat with Lassie being the "watchdog". Life was nothing short of perfect on those afternoons.

Another fall trek of ours was to hike to what we called "The Lone Pine."  The tree was a huge winte pine that was by itself on a section of our property close to the Wonderspot Resort.  To get to the tree, we had to take a route along what was the remnant of an old lumber road that meandered through the woods.  During that time of the year there would be leaves on the ground, leaves dancing though the air with any breeze, and the simple sound of my footsteps on the dry leaves.  Lassie would be in front of me and behind me and/or chasing off through the brush after any critter that dare move.

The old lumber/logging road eventually let to the highway.  To get to the "Lone Pine" I usually turned off on a tiny foot trail that led through a small grove of birch trees on to a sand-spit before descending to follow a trail that followed the edge of a large slough.  Eventually the trial ascended to higher and dryer ground and then dipped again through another swampy area before finally ascending to an almost island like place,,,and there grew the "Lone Pine" in all of its majesty.

I would climb the tree to a space where the branches formed a chair-like embrace...about 15 to 20 feet above the ground.  And from that perch I could look out over the lake, look back toward the family home, and enjoy the panorama of the fall woods.  The dog would rest and/or nap on a bed of dry needles at the base of the tree while patiently waiting for me to climb down.

From that very comfortable perch I would frequently contemplate my teenage angst...but then would also dream of the future.

Even now, all these years later, I can remember the smell of pine and pitch, I can hear the sound of the wind in the needles of the tree, I can hear the wind rustling the leaves of the surrounding trees, I can hear the lap of the waves against the shore of the lake...and feel the sunlight on my face.

If I shut my eyes and set my mind free...I am there once again with Lassie at the foot of the tree waiting for me so we could walk home...as two good friends do...anticipating our dinners.  If we lingered too long, dusk would descend and the warmth of a late autumn day would change to the chill of night...and the lights from Mom's and Dad's house would be a welcomed beacon guiding us home.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a brief “article” about how the ultra-gentrification of San Francisco had to be effecting the quality of gay life in San Francisco.  Today I Googled (please pardon my "techie English") upon a couple of articles that tie in with that same subject.  People are becoming aware, finally, that the extreme high cost of living in San Francisco or its environs is not only causing an exodus of gay people but also preventing gay people from moving here.

Yes, San Francisco still has somewhat of a draw as a “mecca” for gay people.  However, that image is changing rapidly each and every day.  How can you move here if you cannot afford to live here?  (Unless you were born with a trust fund.)  Yes, the City has a great support system for gay people.  It also remains a very tolerant city.

It still has a huge Gay Pride parade even though that has been corrupted by corporations that it has turned  vanilla to be point of being boring.  Does anyone remember the Gay Pride parades of the past...even during the height of the AIDS epidemic...hundreds of thousand of people attending, thousands upon thousands participating, bar floats full of handsome scantily clad men, the throbbing dancing beat from these floats causing everyone to move to the music???  It does not happen anymore.  Dykes on Bikes seem to be the only carry-over from the parades of the past.

The Folsom Street Fair is still a nation-wide event...yet the majority of participants are from somewhere else.

The Castro Street Fair seems to be slowly fading away.  Yes, it is still an event but it now draws less than half the people of the Folsom Street Fair.

Go-go boys?  When was the last time that anyone encountered go-go boys at a gay bar in San Francisco?  In the Castro?  

Hustler bars?  Ok, I am on thin ice with this...but regardless of whether it is "right" or "wrong"  this scene is now gone...the Polk Street's bar scene is dead and nothing but a memory as wealthy straights parade from establishment to establishment.   Remember when the gays in San Francisco were on the cutting edge of what was to be determined to be "right" or "wrong" and they plunged ahead with fun-filled glee?  It is hard to imagine from the perspective of today that it even existed.

 I have live here for over 30 years.  The other night…during one of these unusual warm January evenings…I decided to go out for a drink after work.  My observations…well I found them to be startling.  Let me try to do a comparison:

 1982:  The number of bars in SF were countless along with numerous restaurants, etc.  Any day, once the happy hour hit, the lines would form outside of the popular places…lines filled with the young.  The bars were packed only not quite as packed as on a weekend night.

2014:  What is left is a handful of tired average bars in the Castro filled with gray haired people.  There is nothing wrong with gray haired people…I am one of them.  Yet one has to ask "Where are the young people"?  They cannot afford to live here.  The evening I went out, I went to what were at one time three historically popular bars (two of them have changed names)…they were not crowded on a warm evening!  There was no cocktail hour crowd filled with handsome young men and women.  My last stop was at a bar with a few tables of people, a couple of people at the bar itself, and through the huge windows I could see another bar across the street filled with silver heads.  The only thing of interest to watch was an older lesbian couple hooking up...and this was in a "hot spot."

Back in the "day" there was a video bar on 18th street that was the penultimate place for 20 years old and 30 year old men to meet and greet and hook-up.  It still exists.  However, instead of lines of handsome young men waiting to get inside the bar, the average age is now 45 to 55 years old (but still handsome).  Once again, though, there are no young people.

One then has to wonder that when us older gays either die or lose our rent-controlled apartments and move away, who will replace us?

Will this joke become a reality:  "(Q) What do you call a young gay man in San Francisco?  (A) A tourist!"

~J. Lysdahl

At the time I was growing up in Northern Wisconsin it was like "forget what the calendar says" for winter would set in seriously by the middle of November.  Usually by the end of October the brightly colored leaves of fall had become a memory and the leaves that were left were dark brown hanging listlessly on the oak trees.  All other trees were completely bare with their branches nothing more than simple fingers etched against the sky.

The first snows would come during this period of time.  And, historically, the lake would freeze over during the week of Thanksgiving with ice thick enough for walking from one end of the lake to the other.  The snow was beautiful for it would gently cushion the scenery in a gauzy white...turning the pines into instant "flocked" Christmas trees.  Usually by the first of December the accumulated snowfall was knee deep.

...and by this time of the year the cycle of snow and cold had set in with a predictable pattern.  If the temps warmed up, one could count on the fact that it would be snowing.  When the snow stopped the skies would clear and the temperatures would plummet...frequently dropping down to zero degrees (F) or colder.  The ground frost would be several feet deep and the ice on the lake would be three to four feet deep...thick enough to hold a car plus a whole host of ice-fishing shacks.

It would be so cold that when one set out to get their freshly cut Christmas tree...and then bring it inside a heated home...it would take at least a day before the tree would thaw sufficiently to be decorated.

With the snow came winter sports.  Ice rinks were plowed on the lake(s) and many nights we would have bonfires in the center of the rinks both for warmth and for light...and we would skate until tired and bone cold in spite of the fires.  Cross country skiing was fun.  Sledding and tobogganing were common past-times.

At the south end of the lake was a resort and golf course that was called Al Capp's (way back when).  The hills around this golf course were good for tobogganing because they were steep, fast, and mostly tree-free.  Tree-free was a definite plus when riding on a hard-to-steer toboggan at a fast rate of speed.

In the particular year that I am remembering here, four of us close friends (all in our early to mid-teens) spent the afternoon and early evening tobogganing.  The four of us were Jack, Hank, Mark and me (names changed to protect the innocent as well as the not so innocent).

Jack was an only child born late to his parents and had an odd body as well as defective eye sight.  In his teens he was over six feet tall...all legs and almost no torso.  Hank's grand parents owned one of the resorts on the lake.  Mark was one of my closest friends at the time.  He was a farm kid from one of the most successful local farms.  He was also a natural athlete and had one sweet body.  ...and that would be a whole 'nother story.

Then there was me.  I was not as much of a natural athlete as Mark yet i did not have awkwardness of the other two of our friends.  Throughout the year during those years I worked on farms, biked, swam, skated, etc...fit and slim.

On this particular Christmas Eve afternoon/evening we tobogganed many runs down the hills trying to reach faster and faster speeds in spite of the occasional mishap.  The temps were hovering around zero (F) and the forecast was for sub-zero (F) during the night.  The cold did not phase us because of the way we were dressed as well as the warmth from all of the exercise.  

Eventually the pale cold sunlight of the afternoon evaporated with the onslaught of the near arctic type of night and all too soon us pals realized we should be heading home to our families.

Two of us had to head in one direction to get home, the other two headed in the opposite direction.  I remember standing on top of a hill with Hank watching Mark and Jack trudging away through the deep snow into the cold night as they headed for home...and each and all of us calling out our wishes for each of us to have a Merry Christmas.  In the quiet of the cold evening our voices echoed into the darkening hills.

Hank and I then set off on our very cold walk home.  Eventually we came to his grand parents resort and he turned off to go home.  My parent's home was another mile or so from the resort and as I continued trudging, toboggan in tow, my thoughts were filled with the idea of warmth, lots of food, and lots of presents!

...And as I finally started walking up the driveway...there was Mom's and Ad's house nestled amongst the snow drifts, snow blanketing the roof, the Christmas tree lights from the tree in the living room window...beckoning me home.

...to be continued 

When I think about Christmas as I was growing up, first and foremost on my mind is the memory of the food...lots of food...lots of good quality food (depending on palate).  There were the Scandinavian items that did require and acquired taste:  lutefisk, scrapple, etc.  Then there was the really good stuff:  lefse, ableskeevers, krumkake, sanbuckles, stolen, pickled herring.

A conversation with my niece Tammy this morning triggered within me the desire to write down the things I remember about growing up.  They may or may not be interesting.  However, they are my memories and will be a part of my legacy of who is and was UJ (aka Uncle John, John, Johnny and a whole host of nicknames that I will not repeat).

My parents retired to a small town in north central Wisconsin in 1957...I believe the day they moved into the new house was either May 3 or May 4, 1957.  The new house was built by my Uncle George who was a moderately successful custom home builder.  He was related to Dad through his wife, Ingeborg, who was Dad's sister.  The plans for the house were ones they found in some sort of magazine.  I remember that the plans were accompanied by an actual model of the house.  The model of the house was a dark pink/plum color with a dark green roof.  It showed shutters and a slightly different entrance than what was actually built.

On my father's side of the family, he had a cousin who had also immigrated to the United States from Denmark and her name was Elsa.  I do not know what her maiden name had been...simply that at the time I knew her, her name was Elsa Off...married to a man named John Off.  Elsa and John had lived in Chicago, IL during their working lives and had one son.  So in the mid-1950s they had decided to retired and had bought some farm land that overlooked Amacoy Lake that was also bordered by a tributary to the lake...as far as I know that stream did not have a name.  The property was and is about four and one-half miles south of Bruce, WI...and was about 100 miles northeast from Hudson, WI (where my parents had lived until 1957).

I remember Elsa as a tall very European sophisticated type of woman.  I really loved this woman and called her Aunt Elsie.  She in turn was very good to me.  One of the things I remember about her was her talling me about one of her and "Uncle" John's transatlantic voyages in which the weather was so rough that some of the portholes on the ship and been broken.  I also remember her giving me books because by then I was well on my route to becoming an avid book reader.  The other thing I remember distinctly about them was that they had a brand new 1955 Dodge that was a pale green in color with a cream colored interior.  I considered that car to be far superior to my own parent's 1949 Nash Ambassador (also pale green but with a darker colored upholstery).

In a large grove of very old white pine trees was an old log farmhouse...that Aunt Elsie and Uncle John updated, added on to, and made into their retirement home.  Before the updating it was two stories with a large kitchen on the main floor and narrow stairs that led upstairs to two small bedrooms.  It had an outhouse!  Before actually retiring to Bruce, my parents actually used this house a couple of years for summer vacations with Aunt Elsie's blessings.  Also there were a couple of times that I would spend a week or two with Aunt Elsie and Uncle John.  They were an entertaining couple who made me feel like an honored guest, treated me like a young adult (I was seven or eight years old at the time), and I loved staying with them.  Also they were not as strict with me as my parents were...so that was a definite plus in my relationship with them.

Eventually Aunt Elsie and Uncle John added another large room to one side of the original log house.  It was a combination kitchen and dining area with a large picture window facing south...and it had a comfortable big fireplace to take the chill out of the air on cold winter days.

With the addition of this room, the old log house sections was converted into a living room, large bedroom, and a bathroom on the first floor.

As I mentioned, the house was nestled in a grove of white pines and the northern end of the forty or so acres Aunt Elsie and Uncle John owned.  There was also an old barn that was falling down...and which was eventually demolished.  I still remember sitting in the shade of the pine trees on hot summer days with either Mom and Dad or Aunt Elsie and Uncle John...the shade was cool and it was there I learned to love the quiet, the sound of the wind whispering though the needles of the trees, of just being.

Eventually my parents did decide to retire to Bruce, WI and they purchased from Aunt Elsie and Uncle John approximately 13 acres of land at the south end of the 40 acres of land...and the property had more direct access to Amacoy Lake.  The shape of my parent's new-bought property was similar to an hourglass.  The top of the hourglass was where they built their new house...and it also bordered what was at the time an upscale resort called Wonderspot.  The bottom half of the hourglass was a wooded area that had a nice sandy beach, was hilly, and covered with a combination of oak and pine trees.

It was an ideal place for a young boy to grow up.  

...to be continued.

Years ago around holiday time I came across a book that was kind of a tutorial on writing...but writing about the things you remember about your life in order to create a legacy.  The intention was and is to create a narrative that future generations could read/re-read and thereby have a consistent thread from one generation to the next.  I do not remember the title of this book.  However, I gave the book to a number of friends, kept a copy for myself...and over the next several postings I will share with you what I have written.

By the way, all of you Raoul and Juan fans...the next chapter is to be published very very soon.

Things That I Remember


My parents purchased an old Victorian farmhouse either just before the Great Depression or during the Great Depression.  I remember them telling me that their payments on that house were $12 per month!  At the time of the Great Depression my father was working for St. Croix County and was very fortunate in that he kept his job.  The house was and is still located at 1232 Fifth Street in Hudson, Wisconsin...which is a beautiful little river city on the St. Croix River right at the point where the river widens to over one mile in width...

I remember a wonderful park along the riverfront.  During the summer when temps were hot and it was humid, Mom and Dave would frequently have picnic dinner at this park...while I would be playing on the slides at the park, playing in the sand boxes, or happily splashing in the warm river waters.

Their house on Fifth Street was two stories tall.  There were three bedrooms and one full bath on the second story.  "Downstairs" on the main level there were what my parents called "the front room", a living room, a formal dining room, and a large eat-in kitchen.  Both the front room and the dining room had huge, almost floor to ceiling, bay windows.  The ceilings were with 10' or 12' in height.

I was born shortly before the house was to be remodeled so I best remember it post-remodel stage.  Mom and Dad had added a large first floor master bedroom on to the back of the house.  The kitchen had been completely remodeled into a perfect U working kitchen.  My mother truly loved that kitchen and was never as happy in the Bruce, WI kitchen as she was with the one in Hudson.  After the modeling the house had gray shingles with white trim.  My room was the room on the second floor, facing Fifth Street, above the dining room.  When they were getting the room ready for me to move into it, I wanted a room painted red.  The compromise was that they painted the rough oak floor a bright red and then put a floral linoleum over the floor leaving the bright red as a border.  My bed was an antique 3/4 sleigh-type bed with carved castles and forts (or that was what I thought they were) on both the head-board and foot-board.  One of my fond memories is of warm summer morning, early, watching from my one window one of my best friends (Doug Stohlberg) riding his bike.  I was too lazy to be up that early...yet I remember the softness of the early morning sun, the shadows that dappled him as he rode, and how his shiny bike glinted in the sun.

My brother, Ken, had a room above the front room...I do not remember much of that room.  The master bedroom, downstairs, had a large window overlooking the garden and it was a sun-filled room in the morning because it faced east.

By the way...on July 27 of the year I was born...I was over-due and what started my mother to go into labor was her falling down the last three steps of that house's basement stairs!

There are many things that I remember them either telling me or me overhearing them from this period of time in their life.  For instance, and I mention this again...the house payment of $12 per month.  Eggs were just pennies a dozen and the same thing with milk.  Things were tough for everyone during the Great Depression and my parents were no exception except for the good fortune of Dad keeping his job.

During those early years in the house there were three natural disasters that I remember Mom and Dad talking about.  First there were the dust storm years where the dust storms were so bad that day would turn to night and the street lights would come on because of the darkness.  Mom said that even with the windows tightly closed, the dust would bill up on the inside sills because of the winds and fineness of the dust.  These were years of intense heat and drought.  I cannot even begin to imagine what it was like living in those grim times.

Another great disaster they talked about was the Armistice Day Blizzard...I believe this would have been in 1940.  The immediate thing that comes to mind is Mom talking about was the warm and sunny morning and that there was no forecast of snow except for a slight possibility of flurries during the night.  People were out and about in shirtsleeves enjoying the mild weather unsuspecting the the snowstorm that was swarming over the Plains and heading right toward them.

By mid-afternoon it was snowing heavily with gail force winds.  My mother said she paced the floors anxiously waiting for my Dad to come home from work...there was no visibility whatsoever.

Here is a brief quote from MPR (Minnesota Public Radio) regarding the Armistice Day Blizzard:  "On November 11, 1940, one of the deadliest blizzards this region has ever seen struck.  The Armistice Day storm killed 49 people in Minnesota, 150 nationwide.  One of the most tragic chapters of the storm occurred on the rivers, lakes and wetlands of the Midwest.  Hundreds of duck hunters, trapped by the storm, found themselves in a life-and-death struggle.  There was practically no warning the blizzard was on its way.

"There is something majestic about a winter storm, the way it transforms familiar landscapes while the wind howls.  The Armistice Day Blizzard changed not only landscapes, but lives.  It was an even which endures, a moment frozen forever in memory.

"The fall of 1940 was a warm one.  The war in Europe was front-page news.  In Minnesota, the Gophers football team was number one in the nation again.  With gardens still yielding vegetables well into October, winter seemed far away.  By midday November 11, some areas of southeast Minnesota topped 60 degrees, but a huge storm was just to the west.

"It had hit the Pacific northwest with near hurricane-force gusts.  usually storms weaken somewhat as they cross the Rockies, but this storm did not weaken.  In fact, as it tapped moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and cold air lurking just north over Canada, the two combined into an explosive pattern and the storm system really became what meteorologists call a 'bomb.'

"Winds reach 70 mph during the storm, there were 20' drifts, and over 20" of snow fell." 

What an event to have experienced.  No wonder my parents talked about it over and over again...so much so that I remember it as if I'd been there...but I was not there and would not arrive for several more years.

Next chapter tomorrow...