Category: Memories

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Time Marches On

But it's still sad.

I'm finally starting to organize my photos using MacOS's Photos application. For as long as I've been an Apple user, I've eschewed using it, much preferring the year/month folder stricture I've used in Adobe's Bridge (and more recently in XnView). But a few weeks ago I was trying to locate a specific image and could not for the life of me locate it.

I kept thinking I could've put my hands on it almost immediately if I had organized my photos by year and then by general subject…and the proverbial light bulb went off. Photos! Photos can do that. So, following the methods described in this video, I started importing my photos, going from 2023 backward.

I ran across several photos of the house my family lived in for my grade/middle school years, and out of curiosity—instead of actually driving over to the place—I went on Google maps and street view and saw what it was looking like these days.

As I said, it was sad—especially to see the one-epic Australian Bottle Tree that had graced the front yard from the time we moved into the newly-finished home in 1963 reduced to the 60 year old husk it had become.

November 1963, shortly after we moved in
1964. Not exactly sure of the month, but judging from the angle of the afternoon sun, probably mid-summer. Notice the tree.
Five years after we moved in. The tree has been very happy in that location.
Three years later, summer of 1971. The tree is very happy. It's sibling at the far right was actually planted at the same time. The olive tree went in a couple years later.
A few months later, about a year before we moved out.
July 1998 was the first time I'd been by the place with a camera. I had returned from SF for a visit and had to drive by.
Another shot from that same 1998 visit.
2006. Sometime after 1998 the tree was apparently struck by lightning (not surprising considering it was the tallest object in the neighborhood). The beginning of its—and the neighborhood's—downfall.
And here it is in 2024, 61 years after the house was built and we moved in. Funny thing is, the same family has lived here since we moved out in 1972, but it's obvious a newer generation has taken over and upkeep has gone to hell.

Over the years, both my sister and I have fantasized about buying the house and returning it to its former glory (or gutting it to the studs and updating it to 21st century sensibilities like have been done with other houses in the neighborhood). But it's just a pipe dream, and with the area currently in a downward spiral, it will remain just that.

The house still pops into my dreams now and then, taking place mostly at night, and mostly involving being invited in by the current owners to see what's been done to the place.

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A Little Trip Down Memory Lane

Thank you, Rick, for your post today that reminded me of this!

This gem adored my bedroom wall all through my formative years in the 60s and played a huge part in firing my imagination and igniting my interest in astronomy.

I remember one summer spent back east at my grandparents' place in rural Massachusetts when I earnestly took crayon to paper and drew each of the planets along with the facts we knew about them at the time. I even dared to wonder if our probes would ever see any of them (beyond Mars and Venus at the time) up close…

And PLUTO is a PLANET, damn it!

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Update

As promised…pix to accompany a post from a few days ago.

This is a little adobe bungalow that I designed in 1983—about four months before Ben was even born. As I wrote in the earlier post, seeing these drawings again after so many years being thought lost was quite a trip down memory lane.

These were all hand drawn; no computer or CAD involved. The most technological thing about them was xeroxing some generic notes and legends onto self-adhesive translucent sheets and affixing them to the individual drawing sheets.

I always prided myself on my drafting and lettering ability, skills that are at this point sadly lost to time. But looking at these drawings still makes me smile.

(If you want to build this little charmer, knock yourself out. All I ask is that you credit me for the design and send me photos when it's finished! ?)

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Ah, Youth

Reminds me of a time back in college when my friend Peter and I were out shopping and I was trying on jeans. (I think they were Jordache, but don't hold me to that.) When I came out of the fitting room wearing a pair, he yelled from about thirty feet away, "I can see it from here!"

Good times.

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Reminds Me…

…of the toilets south of the polo field in Golden Gate Park. Although that place was much skeevier. Or so I'd heard. ? (At the time I was living in the Avenues, only a short distance from the place. And Taraval. And Wawona. And the end of Judah Street. But those are stories for a another time.)

And looking over my journals from 1997, apparently I heard quite a bit.

Allegedly.

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Blast from the Past

For any local Phoenix readers (do I even still have any local readers) over a certain age who've been here a while…

I found these pictures online while trying to dig up some info on another Phoenix landmark of the early 80s, Hotbods.

The Connection was my favorite watering hole back in the mid 80s. When I returned from San Francisco in 2002 I was greeted by a vacant lot and news that the owner had died of AIDS sometime in the 90s. The new owner of the property apparently couldn't raze the building fast enough, and I wouldn't be surprised if they'd salted the earth on top of it.

So many memories. So many ghosts.

Here are some of my own pictures from the AIDS Benefit Auction that was held at the place in October 1983:

Donnie, a bartender at The Connection.
My housemate Steve Weirauch (center), whom I met at the Connection a few months earlier, and the guy he was dating at the time of the auction (right).
Donnie, a bartender at The Connection.
Patrons. The guy dead-center in the phoeo in the background was one of the bartenders on the disco side of the house. I lusted in my heart, but unfortunately that was as far as it got.
Jack Long (guy in the grey t-shirt) and I dated for a while. And yes, he lived up to his name.

Brent Walker, one of the bartenders on the disco side of the house. While I was more interested in connecting with the other bartender (whose name completely escapes me at this point), it was Brent who I eventually hooked up with. I ran into Brent—again, behind a bar—at the Midnight Sun in San Francisco several years later. To this day, I can't hear Joe Yellow's "Lover to Lover" without thinking of him.
A good view of the infamous Mack truck that was part of the decor of the bar.
Steve and his boyfriend posing in front of the truck. I never partook of any of it, but I understand a lot used to happen in the cab of that truck.
The group St. Tropez performing—eh, lip syncing—at the bar for the benefit auction.
More lip syncing from the group St. Tropez at the bar for the benefit auction.

I may have posted these before, but frankly I'm too lazy to go looking. In any case they'll probably still be new to some of my readers. (I'm discovering that over the years I've repeated myself so many times on this here blog thingie it's ridiculous.)

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Memories

I regret that I did not start recording my adventures in San Francisco for posterity until more than a year after I arrived, so you'll have to forgive me if my memories of my first visit to the Russian River are a little hazy. Specifically, the name of the hot guy with the mouthwatering uncut cock who first took me there completely eludes me. (It's odd the things we do remember, isn't it?)

I'd spent most of my first summer in San Francisco at the beach; officially Marshall's Beach, but unofficially "No Name" or "Boy" or less commonly, "North Baker" (photos here). It was a strip of clothing-optional sand north of Baker Beach and south of the Golden Gate Bridge where men of a certain persuasion would go to get some UV (and if they were lucky, slobber) on their naughty bits.

It was there that one afternoon I hooked up with a British ex-pat who, after we were done making the baby Jesus cry, asked if I'd ever been to the nude beach at the Russian River. I told him I knew of the Russian River, but except for passing through Guerneville, I actually hadn't been there yet, and certainly not to the nude beach.

We made a date for the following weekend, and drove north. We turned off of River Road and onto Wohler, winding our way through wineries until we came upon Wohler Bridge. We drove past the bridge and parked on a spur of pavement just north of the turnoff. Judging from the number of cars parked, this was definitely the spot.

It was a little bit of a hike to the beach itself; something that my 29-year old body handled with ease. (It would probably kill me if I attempted it now.) A well-trodden trail led through a beautiful grove of trees until it dumped us out in an expansive field (pictures 1 & 2 above). We crossed the field, and after passing through another small grove of trees, found ourselves at a small rock-strewn beach (pictures 3, 4, & 5) on the river—already bursting at the seam with naked and semi-naked homosexuals. There was no place remaining to lay out our towels, so we headed back to the field and found a spot in the grass where we could spread out and get some sun.

I don't remember what ultimately happened between me and my British ex-pat, but I will forever remember him as the guy who introduced me to this magical place. I returned by myself several more times as the years passed, discovering that naked boys in the forest were there for reasons other than simply enjoying the sensation of wind on their bare skin…

 

Rumor had it that the property at the time was owned by Fred MacMurry, who apparently had no issue with cute nekkid menz traipsing around his field and forest. Even though the property was posted as "private" no one had ever been hassled for trespassing.

In recounting this, I headed over to Google Maps to take a peek at what the place looks like now. I was devastated. There is now a gate barring access to the area from Wohler Road. The one-time grassy field is gone, now dotted with trees and shrubs. A road has been constructed to the west of where the field had been, leading to some kind of maintenance building, and while there appears to still be a footpath through the former field leading to the river, the beach is nowhere to be found. I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised. It has been 33 years since I last visited, and Fred himself has been dead since 1991. Changes to the property were bound to occur…