Paul Steklenski is The Cider Man, I think. He has made appearances at the Scottish Rite Clinic for Childhood Language Disorders, and I believe it's his wife who tests children's hearing at the clinic.

there is also that old bag lady that owned a house over by 6th ave E.she usually totted around a shopping cart. her story escapes me..

brad's barber shop was my grandpa's barber shop. i knew terry well. he pronounced denfeld "denfield." he once rode his bike from duluth to sturgeon lake to hang out with my grandpa. he smoked many, many cigarettes in his day. one of his eyes had a white cornea from a childhood accident where some kid whipped him in the face with a wire, i want to say.

the guy i always think about is the guy from 8th street, the one who'd wave at the cars.

Elijah. Damn, that rings a bell, but I can't quite call him up in my memory bank.

I know this isn't what you were looking for, but in my alter ego as speedy wienie I have spent a lot of time in public spaces watching people, after a while you become part of the fabric of the place and you see things differently, and people respond to you as though you were more of a fixture than a person.  Now that I think of this, it occurs to me that aside from getting rich which is unlikely to happen, my next best legacy might be to end up on a list like this someday ... 

Anyway, what I was going to say that about a year and a half ago I stopped seeing a lot of the truly truly down on their luck chronic alcoholic types that used to come around constantly in Lake Place or Leif Erikson park.  Knowing how very very hard life on the streets is I figured that I stopped seeing them because they were dead or possibly in jail.  Last fall I saw a video documentary about the San Marco apartments and there they were, a few of them anyway, alive and quite well.  I decided that I'm a supporter of the San Marco project after that, even though I thought it was a terrible idea to start with.  For me it's more like a Lazarus project because in my mind it's brought people back from the dead, or back from the brink anyway. 

Also, thanks Rae, I'm glad to know Steve the video guy is still around, I thought he was dead, too.  I had the same sort of experience with him, met him three times maybe and everytime he asks me about my brother and the movies he used to like back in the early 80s.

Charlie the Yellow Cab driver has got to be on this list.  Perpetual UWS theater student since 1976.  Ride at your own risk.

how about that guy who rides his bike around canal park pulling his two little dogs in a wagon he made out of a plastic storage tub? 


oh, and then there's roland the window washer. he always trys to bum very specific amounts of money. "i need $3.25. pay you back on thursday!"
he used to work on a demolition crew. ask him about his experiences with dynamite sometime...  


hey jp - i had a few frequent residents of the shelter i work at seemingly disappear and, like you had, assumed that they had met their end due to the bottle or cold. but there they landed, at san marco. i'm so thankful for that place.

French Larry=Larry Whalen. He was my neighbor at Emmerson back in the day. He is among other things a modern dancer, great maker of iced coffees and one of the messiest people I have ever known. He currently has some sort of blood disease that requires a blood letting once a month.

What about the Rod Stewart look-a-like guy?

I believe he is in prison.

I lived at Emerson for a short time in 1988. Larry had a collection of ceramic prayer hands in his refrigerator. He also had more things plugged into extension cords than was prudent! It drove his next door neighbor Beetle V. crazy. 
Anyone remember Disco Bob? He was a heavyset guy with thick dark framed glasses who loved to dance to live music. He was a regular fixture at the downtown clubs in the 80's and 90's. He usually had on shorts and a t-shirt that didn't cover his belly, and he could shake that belly!

Once the grey-haired sweeping guy swatted me on the ass with his broom outside the credit union. 

I nominate Frank Nichols.

OMG, Colleen Shannon provided hours upon hours of viewing pleasure for my friends and I.  Favorite quote?  'I would like to be the slave of Janet Reno.'  Bless her, I hope she's still alive somewhere, listening to Marley and looking thru a lens at the fuzzy image of the ore docks.

And the waving 8th street dude - we always gave him a 'beep beep' with our wave.  Sometimes it got us a thumbs up!!  

I'd like to also submit for honorable mentions, the guy who drives his car around the Superior area with his windows down and his left fist pumping wildly and emphatically out the window to music.  And also, Superior's own 'running dude'.  Don't know him or anything about him, except that he runs EVERYWHERE, all the time.  Has for years.  I feel like it's kind of an extra special day when I spot him on occassion.

Deanie from Superior, who seems to make it across the bridge once in a while. He has a fetish for revving car engines and plexiglass. You can sometimes see him at an intersection making an odd flagging motion with his hand, signaling the drivers to rev their engines. Sometimes he carries plexiglass while doing so. 

Also, the old guy whose hair had formed into one big dreadlock, like a ram's horn, on the side of his head. You'd see him at the library with pee-stains on his pants, reeking to high heaven. When he died he left $75,000 to the United Way. R.I.P.

N8.

I think the homeless guy with the "stains" on his face is the one the Fetus staff affectionately call "Burnt Face." There was also the group of Native Americans who hung out (read: drank) behind the Fetus in front of what is now the used vinyl store called the "Good Time Gang."

rod stewart guy is not in prison.

rod stewart guy is not in prison.

My source mislead me...

What about Bob Carlson??????

Is Loud Radio Guy the same as Radio Suitcase Guy? He was on 1st and Lake often, and was very happy. I don't work there anymore, so I don't know if he's still around.

Reviewed the comments and did not see any discussion about the woman with a guitar. Short hair - may have had a tail at one point, and overly dressed for conditions. Dances to her own beat - nomination? Usually see her in the Plaza neighborhood.

thanks for the info, paul. now i know the rumor isn't false and i will steer clear of this guy whenever i see him.

there's a guy I know who I just talked to today.  I don't know him from Speedy Wienie, but I used to see him almost every day when I was in Lake Place, and I still see him often in Leif Ericson, every time I see him he asks where Speedy is going to be.  His name is Tom, he is a professional gambler.  That is, he plays tournaments, etc and wins often enough that that's how he makes his living. I am not describing him as a card counter or any other such thing, and he is not like the old drunk-ish gambler in Kenny Roger's song, but he makes enough money to live from his winnings tournaments, etc.  He is late 40s, maybe 50. He has long hair,a few days or weeks growth but not exactly a full beard.  He always wears a hat and a leather vest, but he is not a biker, he has a van that he may even live in.  He speaks so very quietly that you almost can not hear him, but everything is incredibly wise and deep.  He has a great reverence for nature.  Oh ... he follows Buddhism or taoism or an eastern philosophy of life. But he is not Asian, he is, actually Native American, but not from here, his people are from out west.  And he swims.  He swims as much as he can wherever he can, he told me today that he is waiting for July 15th because that's when Lake Superior is ready.  He is so reverent about his swims that he talks about them like they are his children, or sacred ceremonies, even, he describes the place, how the water was if he sees trout or not (he won't swim in a mine pit if there aren't trout there, for example, trout indicate health of the water). I'll stop there, I really like this guy and wouldn't want to make him into a cartoon or anything, but I suggest him for the list since he just might fit.  Would he?  Does anyone else know him?

---

I thought of vo hung, too.

---

also that guy some call Red, he is mid thirties or forty, goes to a lot of shows ...

Doesn't Dusty Olson support himself by stealing construction materials?

Banana Man! Thank you hotdog.
My first interaction with him was while I was weeding at city hall when I worked for the city.
Banana Man: Whacha doing. Planting bananas?
Me: Nope. Just weeding.
Banana Man: Are sure you're not planting bananas?
Me: Only weeding.
(Long Pause)
Banana Man: (With a strange smile) I want to have a sex change operation. I want to be Cyndi Lauper. 

Such a strange conversation. If you aren't familiar with him, he is a larger Native American man. Would not think Cyndi Lauper when looking at him. I have seen him since and every time he is asking someone about bananas.

@xkabukislayer -- Buddy lives 1 house away from boyscout landing in gary. Pete the Yeti works for Monsanto now ..jkjk I have no idea on that ... and I dont know about kevin either

On the Superior side of things:

UWS has another perma-student whose name is Brad, I think, and he was often referred to as "Bomb-Bag Man".  He is tall and lanky, wears glasses, and regardless of the weather, dons a furry hat and vintage gray wool trench coat, and carries this ratty ol' leather bag filled with what some students believed was a bomb.  I had a film criticism class with him once, and for his contribution to a group presentation on the various types of horror films, he read 3 pages from a Fay Wray biography and told the rest of our group that we were working too hard.  After class, I was informed that he'd made the very same contribution the past 3 times that particular class had been offered (thanks for the info, Joe T).

There's also an awesome fellow over in Superior who is referred to as "Detroit" by the SPD and the folks who live in his neighborhood.  When we lived over there, he'd walk by our house multiple times a day yelling whole conversations to himself at the very top of his lungs, and the conversations were always about how "This kinda shit would NEVER fly in Detroit, man" or "that babymama was drunker than anyone I'd seen in Detroit, and I have a mind to call her mother on her".  One of the main reasons we moved from Superior was to get away from some of the creepy riff-raff we had to deal with over there, but I have to admit that there are quiet evenings that I dearly miss good ol' Detroit.

I 2nd slim jim on the young @ heart guy ... you'd go in there and there would be nobody there, you'd look around and then a pixie-esque voice would say "can I help you?" ... look look look...nobody...turn around...POP...a little analog audio elf is next to you with a stack of 45's in his arms

Where was Gremmels last night?

Today at Sixth Ave. and Fourth St. I saw a gentlemen in colorful Zubaz with socks pulled over the bottoms, a long-sleeve sweatshirt covered by HUGE #4 Packers jersey, leather gloves, and a 3/4-size Packers football helmet on his head.

Dizastress/ben boylan:  Is Superior running man the slight build of a man with dark curly hair who runs in khaki pants and goes to every gas station around lunch time asking for old lottery tickets?  I've seen him around quite a bit and even pointed him out to my brother the other day.

Deanie was around when my parents where younger, early 1970's, and the legend is that he actually got into some peoples garages and blew their car engines up because he was revving the engines too much.  He love engines and we always try to play into his fascination with a little engine revving teaser.

Second N8 (RIP)

And Andy Nelson, former colder by the lake actor...a true character (RIP)

If anybody goes to Steve's video store, ask for something Jason Askelin would like.  I haven't been there in over 20 years, but I bet he'll remember...you'll get soem WEIRD films.

i work in the mall, and i see harold walking up there nearly every day.

As to the 'French Larry' thing, Larry spent a lot of time, like alot of us, owing phone bills, magazine subscriptions, etc. half of Larry Whalen's old mail was Adressed to 'Larry French'. When he would return from the island, he'd call to get the phone service reconnected, and upon hearing the adress and room number, the phone co would inquire about the former tennant, Larry French, about which Larry would deny all knowledge. and git his phone hooked up. Or someting like that. At least thats what Larry told me back in the day. I remember when emerson coop was trying to railroad me out, thet trumped up some instant eviction noise complaint. To which I fired off a point by point, by-law based rebuttal letter, printed on Larry's  printer. after reading it, he exclaimed 'Bravo!' and made me a coffee. I think he was titillated to se the system we just set up rigorously tested. Starfire, Larry himself showed me a 'I opened my mind to French Larry' button. And yes, he was a professional dancer before he fried his knees. Jules Hart once referred to him as an 'Aging Tart'.

I read through all the comments you all had, very enjoyable reading.  I am looking for Larry Whalen, you call him French Larry. He is my old roommate, way back in 1976.  Larry and my sister Robin were a big part of Colder By the Lake back when it first started. I was studying ballet at the time, and found myself one day dancing with the San Francisco Ballet. Before this, when I was at Milwaukee Ballet, I brought Larry in to be Dr. Coppelia.

No one knows Larry like I do, yet I have no idea how to get ahold of him.

Can anyone help me out ... he is on Madeline Island.

Thanks,
Rusty
415-726-3063

About Zra's comment that he lived at Ninth Ave. & Fourth St.  During the Depression, I lived at 421-1/2 N. Ninth Ave E.  The house is still there, I saw it on a Google Earth map.  The heat was a stove in the living room, with no heat upstairs in the bedrooms.  My dad worked at the Kitchi Gammi Club and would occasionally being home a ham sandwich from the club.  That was a great treat for us kids then.

I remember our first telephone -- our plan allowed us 30 calls a month.  The exchanges were Hemlock, Melrose, and later Radisson. 
I later attended Emerson Grade School, which seems to have been converted to some sort of a residence.  Same for Washington Junior High.  I left Duluth in 1950 to join the Navy, later went to UC Berkeley.

What a coincidence, Edwin. I joined the Navy in 1989 (okay, so 39 years after you), went to the west coast and visited UC Berkely a few times before moving to MN, and eventually Duluth!

@Zra,
When it comes to blaring radio and a adult sized pedal trike, it's not about where you're going, it's about how you're getting there.

Character Alert!

Richard "Heatwave" Berler. He came to my 8th grade math class and showed us how cool long division can be.