A story for Karen from Brainstorms
When I moved out of the family home my sophomore year at the U of M, I moved into a room in a converted whorehouse on the west bank of the Mississippi in Minneapolis. It was owned and run as a rooming house by a colorful local cab driver named Red Nelson.

One day my roomate Irving and I were lounging around and this guy opens the door with a key and lets himself in. He looks startled to see us, then looks around the place and says "Where's my goddam stuff?"

It was John Koerner, to whom Red had originally rented the room. When John went to Denmark for a few months, Red had a friend build a false wall on the end of the room, stash all of John's stuff behind it, and re-rented the space to Irving and me.

Tony, John and Dave played upstairs in Red's after-hours place most weekends, where the fridge was stocked with beer you paid 25 cents for on the honor system.

The first time I hitchhiked to California, Red gave me a dime and a $20 bill. He said "Keep the dime in your pocket for a phone call or in case you get robbed, and keep the $20 bill in your shoe in case you find yourself on a date with a woman who is worth a good bottle of wine."

Koerner bought my Bell and Howell WWII vintage 16 mm wind up movie camera a few years later. He was intrigued with the idea that it was built to army specs which required it could be used as a weapon in hand to hand combat and still continue to function as a movie camera.