Transitions.  It is said that you can never run away from yourself.  Yet, sometimes, great distance does give you perspective that you would not have had if you had stayed in the same place.  Thirty-five years ago this coming Memorial Day weekend, I moved to San Francisco.  It has been a fun-filled rollicking ride...I've never regretted for a moment the decision to move to this wonderful place.

Now, however, I am in a different time in my life.  As the final two weeks of working wind down and I approach retiring from the day to day grind of corporate America, I find myself looking at transition once again.  The transition will entail a new home in a small village in which I've never lived.  The transition will entail my rediscovery of the creative side of my soul.

Last night was spent at a wonderful place called Blush Wine Bar with dear friends I've made along the way while living here.  They...each and every one of them...are blessings in my life.  BTW, seriously we were discussing their next visit at my new home...one of them even wants to go ice fishing!

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...

 

From Chapter 2:  Hurricane Aye Yai Yai it's Conchita! lasted for another two days destroying much and what was left was severely damaged in the Lesser Antilles, Guadalupe island, and Pointe-A-Pierre in particular.  When I finally emerged from the safety of the bar at Hanna Mae's, reeking of several dollops and three days of Tanqueray gin, it was to find that the coconut palm from which I flew so bravely was gone.  The little vegetable garden was also destroyed...the radishes were ravaged, the tomatoes were splats on the side of the outside wall of the garden, and the lettuce leaves were indeed leaves...fallen fall leaves.  The veranda of Hanna Mae's had flown away to the quay by the ocean and was eventually to be used as a seating area for arriving passengers from cruise ships.

However, the with deep sadness over Raoul being missing and life being forever changed from blissful afternoons sipping generous dollops of Tanqueray gin...knowing that the life we had built was all gone...I had no choice but to either sit there and grieve or move.  There was no sign of Raoul or his boat anywhere.

And we lost our Tanqueray distributorship.


Chapter 3:  I was faced with a conundrum:  To rebuild or to go elsewhere and start all over again.  Life without Raoul did not seem worthwhile and, you see, at this point my resume only reflected the experience of exotic dancing at Charlie's Turf Club.  I was not sure of how to include the joint management of Hanna Mae's (which had the largest Tanqueray volume discount of anywhere in the Lesser Antilles).  In a moment of weakness I decided to move to southern California.  The decision made sense to me.  So I sold Hanna Mae's for a good profit, packed my bags and caught the first fishing boat leaving Pointe-A-Prince.

Southern California was my chance to start over!  Here, I thought, I would stay...not realizing the future had other plans for me.  As is so often with life, we make plans and then life happens.  So was the case here with fate decreeing a future different than my mere plans.  Unaware of what was going to happen, I bought a two bedroom condo on Laurel Avenue and it was one mere block from Santa Monica Boulevard which was the thriving heart of West Hollywood (aka Boys-town).  The condo was lovely with large rooms, a good kitchen, views that nestled into the palm trees where squirrels and birds played.  The condo complex also included a good sized swimming pool that was perfect for lazy morning sipping coffee (gin?) and tanning.  One might say that I had gone into an early retirement.

Those days were a simple but wonderful existence.  The days began with leisurely breakfast on the patio, eventual retirement to the pool area to lounge in the sun with a plastic cocktail glass filled with a generous dollop of Tanqueray gin and two cube of ice (yes, plastic because the crystal old fashion glasses were not allowed by the pool).

Mid-afternoon would be nap time, early evening would be dinner time, and then I would go to a small quiet club on Santa Monica Blvd. called Rafters and have "one" or more.  The handsome bartenders soon grew to know me so the dollops of Tanqueray gin into my cocktail were very generous dollops.  I tipped well.

Some evenings I would go walking in a small park that was nearby...and it was here that I first became acquainted with the California ground squirrel...its Latin derivative being "Groundus Squirrelis Californius."  i became friends with one that I eventually named "Whiskers."  But more about that later.

One evening as I was sitting on my bar stool at Rafters I happened to overhear a conversation between two men that were standing a short distance from me.  Apparently they had just returned from an extended trip to Mexico.  As I listened to the conversation, I learned that they had visited a number of areas off of the "beaten track" in order to get an understanding of the "real Mexico."  They had been in a number of remote villages along the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula.  My interest in their conversation was immediately heightened when I heard one of them say to the other "Do you remember the man named "Juan" that had been washed ashore along with his boat right after Hurricane Aye Yai Yai it's Conchita!?

Rest assured that got my attention and I began to listen more closely to their conversation.  The story they were discussing was about how a man had survived the hurricane and had landed ashore along with his wrecked fishing boat.  He had almost drowned but had recovered except that he suffered terrible amnesia and could remember little from his past.  There were only a few things that he remembered and could recall...one was the name "Hanna Mae."  The guys discussing this were wondering if "Hanna Mae" were an ex-lover.  My heart quickened.  They went on to surmise if "Hanna Mae" might be his mother?  Sister? Friend?  It was all a mystery.

Apparently this man thought that his name was Juan!!!  After he recovered his health, he had opened a small inn right on the coast just outside of Campeche.  He called his inn "The Morocco" because for some reason it had a special feeling for him.

In addition, the bar at the Inn specialized in drinks made with Tanqueray gin!

My thoughts/imagination were on overload upon hearing this and I thought to myself "Can this be the same Raoul that I knew and lost in Pointe-A-Pierre?"  I decided then and there that there was only one thing that I could do.  I had to go to Campeche, Mexico!  For the first time in months, that night, as I staggered up Laurel Avenue, I knew I had found a purpose for my life...to find Raoul!

...to be continued

From Chapter 1:  Then September of 1989 arrived.  It was hurricane season in the Lesser Antilles.  The days, for awhile, passed by peacefully enough.  But those days were soon to be over.  Little did we know, in our happy bliss, that somewhere over the Atlantic a topical depression had formed that was to be called "Hurricane Aye Yai Yai it's Conchita!"  The days of sun, surf, and Tanqueray would soon be over, and they would end with Hurricane Aye Yai Yai it's Conchita! and Raoul and I would be separating in a most desperate and unusual manner.


Chapter 2:  In spite of dire hurricane warnings that Hurricane Aye Yai Yai it's Conchita! was heading for Pointe-A-Pierre on Guadalupe Island in the Lesser Antilles, Raoul went fishing one afternoon so that we could replenish our fresh fish supply for the "catch of the day" on the restaurant's (Hanna Mae's) menu for the evening dinner crowd.  While Raoul was out fishing, I went to the small garden behind the restaurant to gather vegetables for the salads that would accompany all the entrees as well as the "catch-of-the-day".  In the distance, from where I stood, I could see Raoul's boat getting smaller and smaller on the horizon until it finally disappeared from sight.  While in the midst of plucking radishes from the soil, snipping lettuce leaves, and plucking tomatoes I was completely unaware the weather was starting to change.

Suddenly I realized the sun had disappeared and the sky was getting dark and glanced up and saw ominous clouds rushing in from the south east.  The wind which had been gently rustling the palms and the oleander leaves suddenly turned harsh and began to howl...the palms nearly bent double, the oleanders shuddered, and the other flora looked as if it wanted to take flight.

I thought to myself "Oh my God it's Hurricane Aye Yai Yai it's Conchita!" and then desperately realized that Raoul was far out to sea by himself.  My immediate thought was that if I could signal him of the changing weather, it still might be possible for him to return to shore.

So as the hurricane force winds of Hurricane Aye Yai Yai it's Conchita! began to bear down upon Pointe-A-Pierre and Guadalupe Island, I scanned the area for something high enough from which I could hopefully signal Raoul.  The tallest thing I could find was the large coconut palm that was next to the veranda of Hanna Mae's.  I quickly clambered up its slippery sides and made it to the top with a fuchsia tablecloth in hand.  It was my hope that I could flap it around and Raoul would see it and know to come to shore.  In desperation I thought I glimpsed Raoul and his boat.  Alas!  Just as I got to the fronds at the top of the tree, the first rain squall blew in and I lost sight of Raoul.  As the power of the wind increased, my position at the top of the coconut palm grew more perilous.  In fact I was hanging on for dear life wondering how I would ever get to the ground because by then my body was outstretched from the coconut palm like a Moroccan Dervish flag flying wildly in the wind.  The situation grew more critical as I began to lose my grip in the wild winds and my body dervished in the wind and I was barely hanging by one hand onto one of the palm fronds at the top of the tree.

My body continued to be whipped around in the wind as if were nothing more than that damn Morracan Dervish flag.  My grip finally began to weaken and loosen and I knew that my life was gravely imperiled.  With a banshee-like wail I finally released my hold from the palm frond and flew threw the air as if I were dervishing except that was not on a stage but wind-driven free form!  I longed to be wearing my red leotards and black, gray and green sequined cape in my macabre airborne dance!  It seemed as if I flew through the air forever only to fall face first into the neighbor's  oleander bushes.  The bushes and shrubs broke my fall and as I staggered out of the bushes spitting bits of leaves and bits of flowers there was nothing else to do but head for the safety of Hanna Mae's.

By the time I was able to close and bolt the door behind me as well as secure the window shutters, the winds and rain of Hurricane Aye Yai Yai it's Conchita had completely obliterated the view, the building was shuddering, the roof was creaking and I was in complete despair over Raoul's safety.  In my wet and wind shredded clothes I stumbled to the bar, got out my favorite crystal old fashion glass and poured myself a generous dollop of Tanqueray gin, added two iced cubes, and sat down to review the criticalness of the situation.  In spite of several dollops of Tanqueray gin, I grew more depressed with the realization that I would not see my precious Raoul...my gilded cage rescuer...ever again.

In my sadness I lingered upon the memories of his big brown eyes, his thick and long eyelashes, his wicked  smile that danced around the corners of his mouth...and also thought about his very cute (well that part is a whole 'nother story).

Hurricane Aye Yai Yai it's Conchita! lasted for another two days destroying much and what was left was severely damaged in the Lesser Antilles, Guadalupe island, and Pointe-A-Pierre in particular.  When I finally emerged from the safety of the bar at Hanna Mae's, reeking of several dollops and three days of Tanqueray gin, it was to find that the coconut palm from which I flew so bravely was gone.  The little vegetable garden was also destroyed...the radishes were ravaged, the tomatoes were splats on the side of the outside wall of the garden, and the lettuce leaves were indeed leaves...fallen fall leaves.  The veranda of Hanna Mae's had flown away to the quay by the ocean and was eventually to be used as a seating area for arriving passengers from cruise ships.

However, the with deep sadness over Raoul being missing and life being forever changed from blissful afternoons sipping generous dollops of Tanqueray gin...knowing that the life we had built was all gone...I had no choice but to either sit there and grieve or move.  There was no sign of Raoul or his boat anywhere.

And we lost our Tanqueray distributorship.

...to be continued.

Years ago I was working at this great company called Nellcor and during my eight or nine years of working there I made friends that are friends to this day...such as Skip Duncan.  It was perhaps the best place I have ever worked in my life in that it treated its employees with total respect and expected each and every employee to have a value driven home life as well as a value driven work life.  The HR Director was named Francine and she taught all of us great lessons on management, meeting protocol...you name it.  Ok, I digress...but it was also a very creative crowd that I worked with and one year we all did a series of short stories that we were going to tie together into one big story...each part of the big story being told from our own perspective.  In going through some of my old paperwork I found that I still have parts of that project and here is my version of Raoul and John which was called "The True Story":

I've just spent a unique and wonderful evening at an open house/party here in this building where I live. To summarize the evening...I would say it had a very old world feeling for there were Germans, Danes, Spanish, English, and Americans at the party. Fine German champagne was served, the hostess served a wonderful array of food: three types of gravlix (sp?), cheeses, prawns, etc. the hostess, who is originally from Germany, played the accordion...old German folk songs. One of the guests who has a fine tenor voice sang. How do I explain the gentle vibe of this party. Nice. Now I am home, paid some bills online, and in a short time will head off to bed. g'night.