Some of Our Friends

Renzo and Jim live in Rome, Italy. Jim is yet another ex-monk, originally from North Dakota; Renzo is also from the North, but Northern Italy. Isaac's known them for years; for Jeff, it's only since 1992. Renzo is an artist and we couldn't be more pleased that we have the largest private collection of Pins in the Western Hemisphere. They were our gracious and accommodating hosts when we finally visited Rome in 2001.

The Swedish Bears, living in Ortalaby, a village on the East Coast about an hour from Stockholm. Old friends of Isaac, we went together for a visit in the summer of 1993--sort of a honeymoon--and enjoyed the company, the midnightish sun, the countryside, and the freshly dug potatoes. That's Anders on the left, Matts on the right. (Go look in our photo albums for more pictures of Sweden.)

There's just something about Baltimore that seems to grow lots of friends for us. Yep, Gerry & Travis: Baltimore. We met Travis what now seems a long time ago (1993), just about the time he was matching up with Gerry, so we got all the drama first-hand. Gerry is, among other things, a musician, and Travis is a science educator, so we all have something to share together, although we don't share too much music when Travis is around.

Rick and Richard are another pair of bears from Baltimore; there must be something in the water there that makes nice people. We met them at a Christmas party given by Jim Adams & Joseph Dress (to whom we are grateful). They just moved here in 1996 after mistakenly spending years living in California, and we're glad they did. We like engaging in one of our favorite activities with the Rs: sitting around doing nothing. Among other things.

We met Mike in 1999, accidentally but at the suggestion of several of our common friends. It was a weird sort of cosmic convergence, and he quickly became part of the family (or vice versa, it's hard to tell). The family happily increased again in the fall of 2000 when Mike (on the right) and Turtle (on the left) decided to join bear spirits and live together.

Jeff first met Ron when he submitted (in 2001) a short story for Bearotica, a book that Ron was editing (published by Alyson in 2002); Jeff and Ron became good friends over the websites that they did together for Bearotica and for Bears on Bears, another of Ron's books. We've all since had occasional to meet a few times in person, fortunately. Ron writes and edits and speaks and does other cool stuff. Right now he's living in Rhode Island.

Matt used to live in Baltimore, Maryland, but worked closer to Washington, D.C., which helps to explain how Jeff met him at a suburban Taco Bell, where there were frequent, lunch-time gab fests. Among Matt's many passions is Egyptology; you might like to visit his page for the links and to see his ongoing project transliterating "The Instruction of Ptahhotep". The photograph shows Matt in the midst of preparing a multi-course Indian meal that we remember as the most faaabulous we've ever eaten.

Eli is an architect and artist, living and working in Israel. We met him in 1997 when he made a visit to the US with Wolgang Ridder (elsewhere on this page). We've been in touch since than and happily welcomed him for a return visit (finally!) in Autumn 2003. It gave us a chance to catch up on all the gorgeous building and artistic projects that have been keeping him busy.

Wolfgang lives in Bielefeld, Germany, where he teaches English at the Volkshöcschule. Isaac met Wolfgang when he (Isaac) was living in Europe; Jeff had to wait until Wolfgang next visited the US at a time when Jeff was in town. That was in 1997, when he arrived with Eli (see elsewhere on this page), not long after we'd finished building the house in Bowie. He's been to visit a couple of times since then, but we have yet to make it to his part of Europe again to return the favor.

Sam is cute, cuddly, and very sweet. For some time a few years ago, Sam was our boyfriend, too, so be nice to him. When he's working, Sam can be just as geeky as, well, the next geek, but at all times he's just plain good humored, which is a good thing. We're pleased to add that Sam met his Bill in 2001, and they're happily paired.

We met Tom not so very long after Tom met Sam, sometime around 1997. Tom is probably about the most energetic person we know, with infectious enthusiam to share. As he himself said, he continues to be continuous work in progress, so we're never quite sure what new Tom we might see next, although we can always be sure that he'll still be--how shall we say?--a bit blond. But, give him his due: if it weren't for Tom, we'd never have known about Devil-Hunter Yohko. Tom recently fell in love with Carrie, and they got married in 2002.

Tim is an English Biker Bear living in Copenhagen, Denmark. Biking is his passion, as you find out if you visit his InterBike homepage. Beneath all that leather he's a translator dealing with Scandinavian languages; his business is called Eurolingua.
When Tim finally decided to visit the USA (and us), he quite naturally did his traveling on a Harley. We have a portrait of Tim & Harley, slightly on the formal side. While he was in the States, he got a new Celtic-design tattoo , too. And since he and Harley became rather intimate companions during the trip, we offer a photo of a naked bear & his bike.

Wayne has, in a sense, been here from the beginning. New relationships, when they aren't yet a relationship, can be a little taxing (at least Jeff thinks so, and he's writing this paragraph), and Wayne was the one who suffered all the anxiety Jeff went through when things were just starting out with Isaac.

Visit and see the house that Wayne and Glenn live in, the ponds that Wayne built there, and their cats.