Positive Energy

 

Pair of Seals - bronze sculpture by  Trader Vic (Victor Jules Bergeron, Jr.)

Positive Energy

memoir 

Gregory E. Larson

          Preface: My entire career as an architect was an educational experience. I was a somewhat naïve kid from Kansas, and once I was thrust into the business world, it seemed every day was an adventure in meeting new and different people and ideas. It definitely was not boring. Working for over 30 years for Hallmark and Crown Center, the variety of people and projects made life interesting. This memoir is a vignette that gives a peek into those fascinating times.

          Do you remember the Trader Vic’s restaurants? I’m sure that some of you do. They had fancy drinks and an interior atmosphere that I’d call “funky tiki-hut a la South Pacific.” Kansas City had one for many years in the Westin Hotel. Very popular, especially at lunch time, it was an oasis during the workday for three-martini lunches, with an odd mix of politicians, power brokers in business suits, rendezvous couples and tourists. The management cultivated the repeat clients and had their booths waiting for their appointed arrival.

          At the height of their success, there were 25 restaurants, including ones in London, Munich, Singapore and Tokyo. I also remember the lines in the strange rock song, titled “Werewolves of London,” by Warren Zevon:

          I saw a werewolf drinkin’ a piña colada at Trader Vic’s

          His hair was perfect. Nah!

          Ah-ooooo, werewolves of London

          The founder of Trader Vic’s, Victor Jules Bergeron, Jr. (1902-1984), was a self-made man. In 1934, he spent $500 and opened a small restaurant near his parents’ grocery store in Oakland, California. The little restaurant, named Hinky Dinks became a hit and at some point the name was changed to Trader Vic’s.

          Nothing seemed to curb Victor’s drive and energy. As a six-year-old boy he had tuberculosis. Complications required amputation of one of his legs, but he never complained. He was a writer and self-taught artist who painted and created sculpture and jewelry. His passion was the South Pacific and the drinks and cuisine that came from there. He claimed to have invented the Mai Tai cocktail in 1944 (rum with lime and orange juice).

          I never met Victor, but my path crossed with the restaurant during a two-year project of renovating the entire Westin Hotel at Crown Center (1986-1988). I was responsible for meeting with the design consultants, and then coordinated an in-house team to transform the concepts into construction drawings for the contractors. Crown Center had hired a west-coast hotel design firm, but Trader Vic’s had their own designer from San Francisco that they used for their renovations. During the initial meetings with representatives from Trader Vic’s, we learned that the “tiki look” was getting worn out, and they were changing the interior design of the restaurants to have a “marine antique” look with giant ship models, marine lights, nautical accoutrements and paintings. Of course, most of the meetings took place during lunch at Trader Vic’s. I acquired a taste for their grilled mahi-mahi. I’d never had anything like it, nor have I found anything as good since. The mahi-mahi was cut in thin pieces and grilled with a light coating of something a bit crunchy. The herbs and spices melded with the lemon and butter.

          This was in the ’80s before Autocad computer drawings and electronic sharing of information. During the coordination effort, it was necessary for me to go to San Francisco with a marked-up a set of their drawings along with comments and questions. I also took a set of the beginnings of the construction documents.

          Upon arrival at the downtown hotel, a near-disaster was averted. After I paid the fare and tip to the cabbie, the bellhop greeted me at the cab and grabbed my luggage. All of a sudden the cab driver started to pull away from the curb. In a split second, I realized the blueprints were in the back seat. I slammed my palm on the trunk of the cab and yelled, “Stop!”  and let out a sigh of relief when the brake lights came on. All of the notes for the meeting would have disappeared in the night if I hadn’t slapped the trunk.

          The next day I met with the design firm in downtown San Francisco. I was so happy to have the marked-up blueprints and the meeting went smoothly. In the afternoon, the Trader Vic’s representative came and we updated him on the progress of the plans. He then suggested we go over to Oakland with him to see their warehouse where the decorations and antiques were stored. After the warehouse visit, he planned to take us to the flagship (no pun intended) Trader Vic restaurant in Emeryville. Oh boy, more grilled mahi-mahi!

          Across the Bay Bridge we went, and arrived at the warehouse full of interesting items, and met an unforgettable warehouse manager with a vintage hippie-look: blue jeans, Hawaiian shirt loosely buttoned with gray chest hairs poking out, puka-shell necklace, long hair and wire-rim glasses. He was proud to give us a tour. The warehouse was like a candy store full of interior decorations: unique chandeliers, brass ship barometers, harpoons, giant ship models. I could have poked around for hours.

          When it was time to leave for dinner, the representative whispered something in the warehouse manager’s ear. He disappeared and quickly returned with a small box, which he opened and pulled out a small bronze sculpture of two seals.

          “This is a memento for you, and a token of our appreciation for your work on the space in Kansas City. It is one of Trader Vic's sculptures.” He handed it to me and I almost dropped it. The weight of the cast bronze sculpture was about three times what I expected for such a small item.” I was truly moved by their friendship. Moments like those made all the hard work worthwhile.

          Being the observing architect, I looked up and noticed something a bit odd. Over each truck dock was a large steel-frame pyramid hanging from a chain. Each pyramid was about eight feet wide and the pyramid point was about four feet high.

Pyramid frame hanging above the dock

          I turned to the warehouse manager and asked, “What are the pyramids for?”

          Our eyes locked and the old hippie gave me a deadly serious response, “Those are what give us positive energy.”

          Okay, I thought. I guess I’m not in Kansas anymore. I responded, “Hey, whatever works,” and we all chuckled. I wondered if they were something requested by Victor Bergeron or something the manager decided to install. I never asked.

         While having dinner by the bay that evening, I thought about how fascinating the business trips were, but it was always good to get back home to Kansas.

Tenby Harbour

Tenby Harbour, Wales

 

Tenby Harbour – Pembrokeshire County,Wales, U.K.

memoir

by Gregory E. Larson

          The travel literature in 2008 described Tenby as a picturesque harbour and a must see. Gretta, my wife, shared more information as she did her research for the trip. "It sounds like Tenby gets pretty crowded in the summer with vacationers, or those on holiday, as they call it. There are tour boat rides to Caldey Island where an order of monks have an abbey, AND they make chocolate. How cool is that? Oh, and there's a tea garden, too."

          I could tell by the look in Gretta’s eyes that the harbour and the tour boat ride were definitely on the list of activities. I decided to put in my two-cents-worth. “We could hit a pub in town for lunch with Ale and Cider.” That would give her tea and chocolate, and give me ale and snacks. Something for both of us.

          The day trip to Tenby, Wales, didn’t disappoint. Arriving early in the day, we were able to park the rental car in a car park for a few pounds, and we scurried into the charming village of pastel-colored town homes. Streets and alleyways angled in every direction, with views down to the harbour full of sailboats and fishing vessels. After purchasing tickets for the trip to Caldey Island, we felt like pinballs dropping down to the harbour as we walked out on the seawall and down the stairs to the water’s edge to board the tour boat.

          While sitting in the boat, waiting to start the fifteen-minute trip to Caldey Island, I snapped a picture of the harbour as the clouds filled most of the sky. For a Kansan, it was a rare view of boats and the colorful buildings of the town. Gretta looked excited. She was more than ready to get to the land of tea and chocolate, so I snapped a picture of her in the tour boat.

Gretta ready for the tour to the island of tea and chocolate

          Finally, the boat began to pull out of the harbour and past the seawall. We passed the lifeboat station and launch ramp, and bounced on the waves as we continued to Caldey Island. The wind was cold and brisk, with intermittent sun and clouds. I concluded after a few days in England and Wales that I could easily be a weatherman there in the summertime. Every morning the forecast was for a low of 48F and a high of 68F, and cloudy with a chance of rain. Day after day, that forecast would suffice.

Lifeboat Station and Launch Ramp

Coastline of Caldey Island

Tea Time

          We walked through the woods on the isle until we found the monk’s chocolate factory. Then we stopped for tea, scones, and clotted cream. Gretta was almost giddy while having tea. She looked like she was living out a fantasy from her childhood.

          After tea, we walked out onto the paths that followed the coastline of the island, to look at the rocks and take a photo of the lighthouse. Other than a few short months of summer, the place looked like it would be pretty bleak most of the year.

Back in Tenby, we spent part of the afternoon at a local pub that was a half-level below the street. One had to duck below the beams inside, just to get to the bar. It had that old musty smell with a pinch of ale thrown in.

I had fun ordering the beer from the cask, called Old Speckled Hen. I ordered Gretta a Strongbow Cider. Two men at the bar looked at me and one said, “Hey laddie, you don’t sound like you are from around here.”

I replied, “So you didn’t detect my Cockney accent?” They burst out laughing.

“Okay, so where are you really from.”

“Kansas, U.S.A.”

“Is that a fact? Is it flat out there in the middle of the country?”

“Part of it is flat out in Western Kansas, but I’m from around Kansas City, and there are a lot of hills around the Kansas and Missouri Rivers.”

They looked me over again and one of them said, “You are a long way from home, for sure.”

The buddies at the bar talked about how they and their spouses took a trip once a year, and they picked Tenby. One of them said, “Our wives have been out shopping all day.” He looked at his buddy and said, “I suppose we’d better go find them or the two of us may be forced to sleep in a tent tonight out by the caravans.”

Gretta and I enjoyed the nuts and chips with our drinks, soaking in the local atmosphere, the laughs of the patrons and the smell of ale. And that was pretty much our day in Tenby.

The Red Boat - Tenby Harbour
2021 watercolor by Gregory E. Larson

* * *

Now, in 2021, I scrolled through the photos with mixed emotions, happy and sad; happy to see how much fun Gretta and I had on the trip, and sad that she’s not here to re-live the memories with me. I looked at the harbour photo and decided to do a large watercolor of the red fishing boat with all the harbour and buildings in the background. I knew it needed to be a large painting to get all the details. The photo was taken on a cloudy day, so I wanted to make the painting a sunny day, to make the colors more vivid. It was my most ambitious watercolor to date.

While I worked on the painting, I would think of that moment in time, just before our tour boat began to move, when I took the photo of the harbour. I’m glad that tour put me in the spot to see the harbour from it’s edge, all the way back to the townhomes lined up on the hillside. I decided, yes, it was a picturesque harbour, just as the travel literature described it.

The Streets of Chicago

 

Early morning sunlight shines on the Chicago Loop

The Streets of Chicago

memoir

by Gregory E. Larson                                                                                     

Some people say that big cities never sleep. I’ll take exception to that. Sometimes they are almost asleep. At least, that is what it seemed when I walked the empty sidewalks of downtown Chicago on a Sunday Spring morning years ago. For an architect, Chicago is like a candy store with buildings dripping with a wide variety of details.

When the light cracked through the curtains at the Burnham Hotel (the historical Reliance Building), I couldn’t resist the temptation to go exploring on my own. I pulled on my clothes, rode the elevator, then slipped out into the quiet of the early morning. The sunlight reflected off the tops of the buildings and the light filtered down into the urban canyons.

Rarely a car passed by, and I saw few pedestrians. The “L” was operating but the cars looked empty. I made slow footsteps, peering up at terra cotta details and looking down alleyways. The contrast of the shadows and light gave way to thoughts of the Jimi Hendrix song The Wind Cries Mary, with the line “the traffic lights, they turn blue tomorrow,” and more thoughts of slow, bluesy saxophone jazz that accompanies the detective stories.

An empty Michigan Avenue

It was an odd feeling to be in a quiet interlude of a vibrant city. I kept walking towards Michigan Avenue near the Art Institute. Empty streets there, too. Every so often I’d take a photo of a detail or a window. I kept walking, looking down streets I’d never seen before. One block west of Michigan Avenue there was a small street that was almost as narrow as an alley, but it was a designated street named Garland Court. I turned north and looked at an amazing patchwork-quilt of building sizes and styles. To my right was a classical-style building with a huge overhanging cornice at the top. To my left was a new building of stone and glass. The morning light shone brightly on the tops of the buildings, but the old-style streetlamps were still shining along Garland Court.

"A Slice in Time - Chicago 2008" (2021 watercolor by Gregory E. Larson)

Looking north to the intersection at Randolph Street, there was an old stucco building with stone trim and a modern brick building with an atrium at the front. Beyond that was a stunning mixture of buildings and colors. In the distance, the Trump tower with cranes at the top was under construction along the Chicago River, on the site which the Chicago Sun-Times building once occupied. I had attended a continuing-education session for architects in Kansas City and learned the concrete used in the Trump Tower was a new innovative chemical mixture that was 40% stronger than typical concrete. The soupy mix design allowed it to be pumped over 1,000 vertical feet. The curing time for the concrete was much faster than standard mixes, thus the forms were removed and the project was allowed to rise at a rapid rate.

There was also a neo-gothic pencil-like tower that I’ve since learned is the Mather Building (The Chicago Quarters Hotel). A man named Mather was a railroad magnate who built railroad cars. He commissioned the design and construction of what was then the tallest building in Chicago at 42 stories when it was completed in 1928. I took photos of what I thought was the prize view of the early-morning exploration. Since I rarely get to the large cities, this was the gemstone of my Sunday morning wandering.

Over a decade later, as I started painting the watercolors, I went back to the Chicago image, made a copy and showed it to one of my art instructors. He said, “Greg, I think you are biting off more than you can chew. You should wait and save that for a time after you’ve gotten a lot more painting experience.

This year I decided to really push myself to take on larger and more difficult paintings. It felt like the time was right to tackle the painting of the Chicago view. I researched the surroundings on Google “street view” and the internet. I learned the building on the left is a condo tower named The Heritage at Millenium Park. At the time of its completion in 2005 at 57 stories, it was the largest and tallest condo building in Chicago. Taller residential towers have since sprouted in Chicago and other large cities to satisfy the market for spaces with magnificent views out onto the cityscapes.

As I planned the painting, I realized the street looked so empty on that Sunday morning, so I decided to add a 2008 Ford, Crown-Vic cab on the street, and to add more action, I painted myself (my better side) walking north on the right sidewalk.

To my surprise, I discovered that part of the view I photographed in 2008 no longer exists. Two blocks north of where I took the photo, a new building blocks the view of the Mather Building. It made me realize that I was very lucky to see the older view, being there on that Sunday morning with the early light, thus I gave the painting the title of “A Slice in Time – Chicago 2008.”

Neo-Gothic detail on a Chicago building

The Dutch "Golden Age"

 

Glass Chandelier in the Mauritshuis Museum, The Hague, Netherlands

The Dutch “Golden Age”

memoir

By Gregory E. Larson

           Over the years I think back to different bicycle tours and re-live the daily adventures in my mind. There was one special day on the Netherlands tour in 2017, a day that bubbles up memories like a fountain. The time spent in the Mauritshuis Museum in the city of the Hague was an unexpected treat, and is my focus in this recounting.

          I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and looked out the small, round porthole of my cabin on the barge, which was lashed to a quay at the juncture of canals and a river in Delft (pronounced Del-left by the Dutch). It was a picturesque view across the water to the church towers and buildings at the center of the city. The barge named Elodie was a moving “hotel” for me and fifteen other people who were part of our bicycle tour.

The Elodie was our moving hotel during the bicycle tour.

          After breakfast in the main cabin,  our group went up on deck in the chilly spring air to soak in the morning sun while the barge floated peacefully under the bridges and through the neighborhoods on the north side of Delft. Our captain slowed the huge craft to the side of the canal and tied it near a shop that made authentic Delft pottery. Once inside, we were given a guided tour which included facts on the history of Delftware. During the Golden Age (17th Century) in the Netherlands, the ships coming back from the orient brought Chinese glazed pottery, mostly blue and white, with scenes of nature painted on the different facets. This pottery became popular with the wealthy, and the Dutch craftsmen decided to create imitations of high quality, to satisfy the demand of the middle class.

The Defltware Studio on the north end of Delft

          A quirk of fate is that now the Chinese are imitating the Delft style, and ninety percent of the supposed Delft pottery today is manufactured in China. What goes around comes around.

          After the tour, we hopped on the bikes and pedaled to The Hague (pronounced the hawg in Dutch with the “h” gargled out of the throat).

          The Hague is a bustling city with local, national and international organizations headquartered there, including the King’s residence, the Parliament and the World Court. It was important to pay attention to our guide as we wove our way through the cobblestone streets, making sure to work around the pedestrians, streetcars and tracks, motorbikes and general traffic in the area.

          Our first destination was the Mauritshuis, a compact museum at the corner of the town square. Their mission is to show the best of Dutch paintings from the time of Rembrandt and Vermeer. I knew that Vermeer’s Girl with the Pearl Earring was in the collection but that was my sum total of knowledge when I walked through the lower Garden level entrance. Several people in our group bought tickets and we rode the elevator to the upper exhibit floors. After viewing the galleries on each floor, we walked down the central stairs to the next floor.

Interior Gallery on the upper floor of the Mauritshuis Museum

          The interior was traditional, with chandeliers, silk-patterned wallpaper and heavy

mouldings. To my amazement, the museum was full of Dutch Masters paintings,

including Rembrandt (Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, 1606 - 1669), Fabritius (Carel

Fabritius, 1622 - 1654), Vermeer (Johannes Vermeer, 1632 - 1675), and Steen (Jan Steen,

1626 - 1679). I enjoyed looking at the young and old Rembrandt self-portraits and

wondered what type of a mirror he used to look at himself.

Rembrandt Self-portrait 
Mauritshuis Museum

          In this period of the seventeenth century (considered the Dutch “Golden Age”), the Dutch artists flourished, casting aside the traditional portrait and religious commissions to paint detailed still-life settings of flowers, pottery, and fruit, as well as landscapes, and interior scenes with people interacting in daily life. I was astonished at how young the painters were when they died.

Girl with the Pearl Earring
by Johannes Vermeer

          I walked into the gallery where the Girl with the Pearl Earring resided. In the late morning, there were only a handful of people in the room, and after viewing the painting, they moved on to the next gallery. I stood mesmerized at the girl’s face and realized that the painting was fairly small (17.5” high x 15” wide). To my amazement, no one, other than an occasional guard, came through the room. I took the luxury of sitting on a bench, and spent several minutes peering at the painting, inspecting the brush strokes of reflective light off the pearl, and looking at the folds and colors in her blouse and head scarf. I was grateful for the time, having read about the painting when it was on loan and toured the U.S., where people had to wait in long lines for over an hour just to walk by the painting for a few seconds.

View of Delft
by Johannes Vermeer

           As I looked at the other works in the gallery, I discovered two more of Vermeer’s paintings. View of Delft (38” high x 45.6” wide) caught me by surprise. In my view was a 17^th century painting of the very spot where our Elodie barge had spent the night. The skyline and the river looked a bit more ancient and in the foreground was a barge parked to the left of where our barge had anchored.  This view of Delft did not have the city streets and paved quay – just some people in period dress standing in a field next to the river. Not many landscapes by Vermeer exist, and the sum total of his known works is barely over thirty. Almost one-tenth of his paintings resided in this room! The third Vermeer in the room was Diana and her Companions (38.8” high x 41” wide). Wow, I thought, here’s a gallery with three Vermeer paintings and I have it all to myself.

Diana and her Companions
by Johannes Vermeer

          I walked to the next gallery and turned my head to the right. I gasped and did a double-take at the small painting of The Goldfinch (13” high x 9” wide) by Fabritius. I was familiar with the painting, which was used on the cover of the recent fiction book by that title, but I had no idea that the original painting resided in the Mauritshuis.

The Goldfinch
by Carel Fabritius

          After reading more about the arts Golden Age in the Netherlands, I learned that Rembrandt was a teacher to Fabritius. The year 1654, when Fabritius completed The Goldfinch, there was a huge explosion of a gunpowder magazine in Delft. Over one hundred people died, including Fabritius, who was only 32 years of age. The Goldfinch survived the blast. It is also important to note that Fabritius was considered a mentor to Vermeer.

          Our bike group then rode to the front gate of the World Court building, known as the Peace Palace where we sat in a little park and ate lunch. It seemed ironic that a “peace” palace would have a monstrous iron fence surrounding it.

World Court - Peace Palace
The Hague, Netherlands

          Then it was on towards the north and east to the sea coast, where we rode along a bike path that snaked through the sand dunes and scrub-brush. At mid-afternoon we stopped at a bar on the beach for a beer. The therapeutic warmth of the sun relaxed our leg muscles as we sat outside and downed the beers served in fancy glasses. We climbed back on the bikes and pedaled to Lieden, a compact university town with canals throughout the city. Our guide stopped us at a bakery that made authentic Oliebollen, which are like crispy gourmet doughnut holes. Someone ordered a couple of baskets of them and we sat outside and tried the different flavors. I thought, this is excellent biker food.

Bike path near the North Sea

          We rode further and found our barge in a canal on the outskirts of downtown. My memory gets a little fuzzy after that, although I do remember that some of us went into town for dinner, and afterwards we climbed to the top of an ancient lookout tower. Finally, my weary body was feeling the effects of an epic day, so I walked back to the barge. As a coincidence, the Dutch soccer team was playing a World Cup Match, and the bars along the street were packed with people watching the game on the big-screens. It was quite memorable to hear the crowds explode when the Dutch scored a goal. I think the Europeans have a double passion for soccer as compared to our American football.

View of Lieden, Netherlands, from the top of an ancient tower

          Sleeping on a bike tour has never been a problem for me. As I started to think of all the things I had done in one day, I was off to a deep sleep in five minutes.

Images of tulips danced through my head and I was off to sleep.

Beer in the Making

The Belgian's love their flavorful beers. Here's an advertising beer wagon that I saw in Belgium in 2017.

Beer in the Making

documentary

by Gregory E. Larson

          I have great memories of tasting Dutch and Belgian beers in northern Europe, where beer is much more popular than wine. Touring beer factories has also been high on my list of places to go. When I overheard two of my cycling friends discussing the home-brewing of beer, I became intrigued. We were near the end of a ride, and had stopped with friends at an outdoor pizza and beer café.

          “We ought to make a batch of Winter Belgian Ale,” Kirk said, “That would be fun.”

          Immediately I asked them if I could witness the process to write a blog. I thought maybe I could learn something, as well as enjoy some tasty craft-style beer.

          Kirk asked, “Have you ever brewed any beer?”

          “No, I haven’t, so it would be a new experience for me.”

         “The most important rule is to have fun.”

          Dan chimed in, “The second most important rule is to keep everything clean. You don’t want to contaminate the process. Ugly things might grow and destroy the batch.”

          Kirk added, “We’ll want to do the entire process, including naming the beer and designing the labels.”

          On our next bike ride, we stopped at Martin City Coffee Co. for some coffee and a bite to eat. Five minutes after we finished, we rode our bikes around the corner and stopped at Martin City Brewing Co. As we looked over the beer offerings, we noticed one that was titled, “Abbey Belgian Dubbel.”

          I asked Kirk and Dan what was “double” in the beer and they replied in unison, “It’s double the hops.”

          Kirk ordered it and gave his assessment. “It’s slightly sweet, good hop flavors and not too dry.”

          That’s when I also learned there is an IBS (International Bitter System) rating for each beer at a brewery. My head started to spin – not from drinking a beer but from trying to understand the whole brewing process. It sounded complicated.

          Kirk suggested we meet soon at the Brew Lab in Overland Park and taste different craft brews, then purchase the supplies to make a batch. A few days later we met at the Brew Lab and we each ordered a “flight” of four different beer tastings (4 oz. each) and shared how each tasted.

          “Ales are the easiest to home brew,” Kirk said, “I brought this Belgian Dark Ale recipe from my brew notebook. We could do a variation on it.” Dan agreed.

          Next, we gathered the items for the brew recipe. I followed Dan (the expert) around as he selected two different barley grains (one of them was roasted barley) and two types of Amber Malt Extract (carmelized), two types of hops (Willamette and Cascade) and some dextrose (sugar). Last, but not least, we started looking at the yeasts. One of them was Belgian Abbey Yeast. It wasn’t the yeast listed on the recipe, but we agreed that since we found the Abbey Belgian Dubbel in Martin City, this might get us close to the elusive “perfect” batch that every brewer seeks.

          Kirk said, “Next week we’ll spend a couple of hours mixing the batch, then we’ll let it set and ferment about a week and we’ll transfer it to a carboy (giant glass container). If you don’t allow enough time for fermenting, it may continue to ferment too much in the bottle.”

          “That’s not a good thing,” said Dan. “Exploding bottles.”

          The following week, at Bell Street Brewing (Kirk’s house in the kitchen) we mixed the batch. Kirk and Dan had been through the process umpteen times (56 batches, to be exact), so everything was planned to the smallest detail. Kirk lowered the barley bag into 160°F water.  Once the barley flavor transferred into the water, he pulled the bag and we added the two containers of malt extract. Then the three of us sat around for the next hour and drank beer while the malt extract boiled. The most difficult job was checking the pot every ten minutes to make sure the malt didn’t stick to the container. The flavoring hops were added and ten minutes before the end of the boil, they added the bittering hops and a small amount of Irish Moss to clarify the liquid. Seemed like hocus-pocus mumbo-jumbo to me, but Kirk and Dan said it was important.

          “Now we have to cool the wort (pronounced vert) down from 160°F to 90°F as quickly as possible.”

          We carried the wort down to his work room where he had a water-cooled, spiral-copper, heat-exchanger tube placed in a special five-gallon plastic container. We poured the wort into the container and set it in a large sink, then packed twenty pounds of ice around it. Watching the ice melt and the temperature drop reminded me of making homemade ice cream with my dad. Within ten minutes we hit the 90° mark on the thermometer so we pulled the container out of the sink and vigorously stirred in the Belgian Abbey yeast. Once the foaming ceased, Kirk tested the specific gravity and put the lid on the container. There was a relief valve that fit on top of the lid. As the fermenting process started, the valve would show the bubbles of the fermenting process.

View of the spiral copper heat-exchanger

          We finished our store-bought beers and agreed to get back together to do the bottling process.

          “The specific gravity reading of the liquid has to drop for 1.045 to 1.012,” said Kirk, “That’s when it’s time to bottle the beer.” A week later, he transferred the fermenting wort into the glass carboy. At that point in time, the liquid has become young beer.

          Two weeks later we met again to bottle the beer. Kirk invited some additional cycling friends to watch the finishing process. It turned out to be a bit of a party, with favorite beers, snacks, and shared stories of days past. It seems the older we get the more stories we have to share, and the beer unlocks the door in our mind where the stories flow out.

          But – work was at hand during this fun gathering. Dan added the dextrose and brought it to a boil to add to the fermented wort. While he was working on that, Kirk set me up with inspecting bottles and cleaning them. First, I had to look into each bottle and point it toward the light. If there were any smudges in the bottom, it became a reject. Clean, clean, clean, I kept telling myself.

          Next, I began work at the bottle cleaning station and drying tree. Placing each bottle upside down on a tube, I pushed the bottle down twice to pump the PBW (powdered brewery wash which is a patented alkali cleaner) into the bottle, and then put it on the drying tree.

Glass carboy, bottle cleaning station and drying tree

          It was a warm autumn afternoon and the garage door was open. We all sat around, drank beer and told stories while I continued the bottle cleaning process.

          Kirk readied the beer with the siphon tube and we began to fill the beer into the fifty bottles. As I filled each bottle with the siphon tube, I passed them over to Kirk, who used a bottle capper to set each cap in place. Voila! With the caps on, the fermentation would continue in the bottles for two to three weeks.

* * * *

In late October two bike groups merged on a Saturday ride. All of a sudden Kirk, Dan and I realized we were pedaling beside each other. Executive decisions needed to be made. Kirk said, “The beer is almost ready for tasting. We need to come up with a name so I can design the labels.”

We agreed the name should have something to do with the pandemic and the election close at hand. We’d been throwing around names for several weeks to no avail. Suddenly we realized the bike groups would soon split and Kirk would ride towards home. The pressure was on to come up with the name.

          I blurted out “Unmasked! What do you think?” They both agreed and Kirk sped off for home. Funny how the mind can struggle for weeks to solve a problem and suddenly the solution just comes out of nowhere. Maybe we should solve more problems while pedaling. My hope was the beer would be as good as the effort and the name.

           Finally, it was time to taste the beer. Kirk thought it was a bit early, but we wanted to make sure it wasn’t a bad batch. I stopped by late one afternoon and we opened a bottle. The flavor was good, but there wasn’t much foam or carbonation.

          “Maybe we tasted it too soon,” he said. “I think it will continue to improve over the next several days. Let’s think about Friday or Sunday to do the real taste. The weather is going to hold through Sunday, so we can sit out on the driveway for the tasting party.

          The Chiefs were beginning the second half of their Sunday game against the Panthers as I drove over to Kirk’s house. The streets seemed ghostly empty with so many people at home watching the game.  Once I arrived, Kirk turned on the radio of his car in the garage and dialed in the football game. I kept one ear towards the radio and began putting glue on the labels, then fixed them to the bottles. The label looked great with masks all around a bottle marked UNMASKED. In small letters were the words, post-election Belgian Black Ale.

The "Unmasked" label design

          The moment of truth came when we opened one of the larger bottles. Kirk poured it into a large plastic cup. Fizz! There was a good foam head, too. He poured some more in cups for us all to taste and said, “Let’s inaugurate it!”

          I took a sip. The taste was very good. Nice hops, and a bit of smoky, somewhat toasty taste. Dan said that came from the roasted barley we used. We quickly labeled the bottles and sat back to listen to the end of the football game, while other friends stopped by to have a taste.

Dan and Greg adding the "Unmasked" beer labels

          “TOUCHDOWN, KANSAS CITY!” The announcer made sure everyone knew the Chiefs had scored. More homemade beer flowed and the game continued with the Chiefs squeaking out a win to put their record at 8-1.

          At the end of the warm, autumn afternoon, we split up the bottles and I brought home two six-packs and two large bottles. I’m going to savor and share them with friends and family. I’ll have one or two on those cold days when I can sit by the fire and watch the football game and sip the UNMASKED homemade beer.

Preserve Your Memories

Porto Ercole - End point for Bike Across Italy in 2005

 

Preserve Your Memories

by Gregory E. Larson

          Simon and Garfunkel's words from a song titled "Old Friends" rattles in my brain from time to time: . . . preserve your memories. They're all that's left you.          

          When I first listened to those words at the age of sixteen, they saddened me because I was full of youth and I didn’t want to hear about people that had grown old. Now my age puts me in that category, and those lyrics fill me with joy because I am full of memories. Yes, they are both sad and good memories, but I tend to lean toward the good ones, in part, just to keep my sanity.

          There’s the milestone memories – graduations, weddings, birthdays and holidays - happy squeals that filled the air on Christmas morning, or feeling the tears roll down the cheek when the sixteen-year-old child backs out of the driveway and begins their first trip of driving to school.

          What memories boil up when you let your mind wander? The ones that are most prominent to me are experiences – not so much the ones from a career or raising a family, but scenes from journeys and adventures. What wonderous times those were, with majestic landscapes and unusual destinations.

          I love to watch a mountain stream jump and fall as it makes its course over rocks and logs. To take a deep breath of mountain air on a cool, sunny morning is about as good as it gets, or to listen to the coyotes yip to each other at sunset so they can find their way and keep warm through the night. When I was younger, there was a satisfaction in backpacking with the minimal amount of gear to take me where most people couldn’t go. I remember all the bike tours across states and countries, of feeling the exhaustion and satisfaction from dipping the bike wheel into a river or an ocean, as a way to stamp the official completion of a tour.

          Part of my psyche hearkens back to Dad, who’s words I can still hear, “Nothing is worth doing, unless you do it well.” The deeper I explored his advice, I learned that experiences were best when I immersed myself in learning everything I could learn or when I trained as much as possible in both mind and body for an upcoming event or journey. It made for a rich experience, even when the outcome was not how I envisioned it. There were fleeting moments when I experienced the temporary nirvana of thinking I’d attained a level of competency, if only temporary, of the best of the best, of campers, hikers, bikers, writers, painters, and musicians.

          After embracing the wonderful memories, I have a deep sense of gratitude that I was able to experience so much in my life. Sure, there’s more to experience, but I am so grateful for my time on earth, grateful that my creator gave me the tools to see the wonders of the universe and to give me the opportunity to navigate life.

          Now that I’m older, I have just as much fun when swapping the tales and yarns of biking or camping adventures with those around me, sitting on the patio with a beer in hand, reliving the details and watching the story play out before my eyes. If I lean back and meditate, and let the beer do its magic, it’s as if I were there in the story, feeling, smelling, and hearing everything around me.

          Sometimes I think I should make a list of top ten physical places where I’ve stood in my life. It would be hard to pare down the list. I’d have thirty places, or more, that I thought should make the top ten. Maybe I need to go back to the Aolean Islands off the north shore of Sicily, rent a small adobe house on a hillside, sit on the veranda, look out over the Mediterranean Sea and make my lists with the reasons why they are worthy of making the cut. I’d have a big bottle of some Italian wine, some fresh mozzarella cheese, a loaf of bread, some olive oil and capers. It would be time to lean back and take a nap and to dream of all the places that have meant so much to me.

         I could do that for many days. Let’s see . . . there could be a list of the top ten adventures, the top ten eateries, the top ten . . . time to take another nap.

          Here are a few pictures from places that are high on the list of memories:

Rooftop Tour of Notre Dame, Paris - 2007

Moraine Lake - Canadian Rockies, Alberta, Canada 2011

Harbor in Tenby, Wales - 2008

Weminuche Wilderness - San Juan Mountains, Colorado - 2003

Lac d'Annecy, French Alps - 2018

Hilltop town in southern Sicily - 2012