Janik, the Frisian Bodybuilder at the Horseman's Club

Amsterdam, June 2003

Just after getting my Ph.D., when I was living in Florida (2001-2005), I tried to go to Europe every year at Christmas or spring break: a weekend in Amsterdam, a night in Brussels,two or  three days in Paris, and then home. I always liked to be in Amsterdam on Sunday nights, when the Horsemen met at the Argos Bar on Warmoesstraat.   It was a social club -- no sex allowed -- but members all had to be nude. Their guests had the option of nudity or underwear.

The membership fee varied depending on your size (yes, they took measurements).  "A" got in free.

So the majority of men drinking beer, playing pool, and cruising had the endowments of porn stars.

It was quite a nice place for sightseeing, and sometimes guys would invite you back to their house.

In the spring of 2003, I met Janik, smooth, muscular, balding, in his early 40s, in the A category and then some, as big as my Cousin Joe, or bigger  (#9 on my Sausage List).

He was pleasant to talk to -- even after I admitted to being American (usually I claimed to be Canadian to avoid being asked why Americans were such idiots).  And at the end of the evening, he invited me back to his place -- in Heerenveen.

Heerenveen, Netherlands, Summer 2003

90 miles north of Amsterdam, 2 hours by train, in Friesland (where most people speak Frisian, not Dutch).  Janik had a tiny apartment on the same block as the "Dirty Duck Coffeeshop" and a heterosexual dance club called "Party Cafe Salsa," which made it quite noisy at night.

Still, we had a very nice evening, and in the morning Janik said, "Stay here with me.  We can be lovers. I can get you a work visa."

Living in Europe with a muscle god in the A+++ category vs. teaching sociology in Florida?  It sounded like a good deal.

So I cancelled my day in Brussels.

On Monday morning Janik went to work, leaving me to go sightseeing in Heerenveen.  Unfortunately, there was not much to do except walk around and look at the houses and canals.  I ended up buying a Frisian phrase book and a depressing French novel about Tintin's sexual problems.  Janik came home, and we went to the gym, then got Japanese take out and watched soccer on tv.

I hate sports and Japanese food.

But we had a very nice evening later, so I cancelled my train to Paris.

On Tuesday, while he was at work, I took the train into Groningen and saw the Martinitoren (St. Martin's Tower) and the Netherlands Stripmuseum (a museum of cartoon and comic strip art).  But the train was so crowded with rush hour traffic that I didn't get home until 7:30 pm.  We got Indonesian take out and watched The Simpsons dubbed in Dutch.

I would have to learn both Dutch and Frisian to live here.  I like languages, but I'd really rather learn something that would be useful outside of Friesland.

On Wednesday, I signed up for a Frisian class and then went out looking for jobs on my own.  The manager of the only gay bar in Heerenveen, Le Clochard, said he could use a waiter who spoke English and German.  That night Janik and I went to the gym, then got Japanese take out and watched soccer on tv.

I still hate sports and Japanese food.

Waiting tables and watching sports with a muscle god in the A+++ category, or teaching sociology in Florida?

On Thursday I took the train to Amsterdam and got on my 5:00 pm flight back home.

See also: The Surprise in the Dutch Afro-Caribbean Horseman's Bedroom

Lane and I Track Down the Gay Baron of Eindhoven

West Hollywood, February 1992

Have you ever wondered what happened after Allies liberated the Jews and other prisoners from the concentration camps in 1945?

A few of the prisoners returned to their homes.  But 800,000 had no homes to return to, or refused to go back to the neighbors who wanted to kill them.

 They were put into displaced persons camps or residential facilities for up to two years, until a friend or relative could send for them, or until they could be repatriated

When she was liberated from Auschwitz, Lane's mother Rosa was sent to a residential facility run by some Catholic nuns in Weert, Netherlands, just over the border from Germany.  She spent her first two weeks walking up and down the streets, stopping in every pastry shop, and eating all she could hold.

Then she set about returning to life again.  She was planning to become a journalist before the War, so she found a typewriter and began writing.  She brought articles around to the local newspapers, first in German, then, as she learned the language, in Dutch.  Soon she was making enough money to move into an apartment with a female friend.

But in August 1947, an American cousin found Rosa and offered to bring her to Los Angeles.

Palm trees and movie stars!  She eagerly agreed.

That's all we knew about Rosa's life in the Netherlands until after she died unexpectedly in February 1992, a few days after her 67th birthday.

When Lane and I were sorting through four decades of cards, bills, business papers, old school assignments, clipped magazine and newspaper articles, Jewish society newsletters, playbills, programs, and miscellaneous records, we found a packet of old letters addressed to Rosa at the Zusters Birgittinessen, and then at her apartment in Weert, and finally at her cousin's house in Los Angeles, with the postmark Eindhoven, Netherlands.

It's hard to decipher one side of a conversation in a foreign language after 47 years, but we got the general plot: Rosa was dating a member of the Dutch nobility, a Baron Hein Van Tuyll, who lived about twenty miles away in the Eymerick Castle.

In February 1947, Hein apparently proposed, and Rosa turned him down.  She explains why: Je niet moet trouwen.  We zullen vrienden altijd (You should not marry. We will always be friends).  

He gamely continued to write to her every week through 1947, when the letters suddenly stop.

The Van Tuyll family is important in the Netherlands.  Hein's father was the first president of the Dutch Olympic Committee.  This statue outside the Olympic Stadium was erected in his honor.

This is the family coat of arms: three hounds, a crown, and two half-naked wild men carrying flowers.

"You should not marry," I repeated.  "Maybe Hein wasn't the marrying kind.  Could your Mom have been dating a gay guy?

"We should go to the Netherlands next summer," Lane said, "And look him up."

"Look up your mother's old boyfriend, and ask if he's gay?"

"It wouldn't hurt.  Or...maybe he has a hot gay son who will invite us to live in his castle.  We would be sort of like brothers, after all."

I was hesitant.  We spent last summer looking up Lane's heritage in Poland, and now we had to do it in the Netherlands?  But I could wrangle a side-trip to Amsterdam out of it, and maybe even Paris, so I agreed.

In the days before Google, family research was tough.  We couldn't track down Hein, but we found his son: 41 year old Sammy, the current Baron Van Tuyll.  We made the call, and got an invitation to visit.

Disappointingly, he didn't live in the family castle.  He had a house in Den Haag, where he worked for the Dutch Ministry of Finance.

Den Haag, Netherlands, June 1992

We spend three days in Paris (not nearly enough time), overnight in Brussels to look at the Grand-Place and the Mannekin Pis, and then take the 2 1/2 hour train trip across the border to Den Haag.

We're only going to spend a few hours: in the late afternoon, we'll get on the train to Amsterdam, where the bars and bathhouses of Warmoesstraat await.

But we have time to see the Escher Museum, walk through the Haagse Bos, an ancient forest in the city center, and meet the Dutch deputy minister of finance at the Allard Restaurant.

Sammy is youthful-looking and athletic, surprisingly hip, a rock musician as well as an economist.   But straight -- he shows pictures of his wife and four children.  We show him the letters.

"You must not marry.  We should be friends," he translates.  "I can't imagine what your mother meant.  Papa married in 1947.  There were never any problems between him and my mother, none that I could see."

Remembering the evidence that my grandfather was gay, I ask "Did he have a lot of male friends?  Maybe Rosa didn't want to compete."

"Oh, yes, Papa was very sociable.  He had a passion for sports.  He was always bringing home athletes: football players, rowers, bodybuilders...."

Lane and I exchange glances.  "Was he into bodybuilding?" I ask.  "I used to work for Muscle and Fitness."

"He didn't lift weights himself, but he loved bodybuilding as an art form.  I remember when Reg and Marian Park came to dinner -- a former Mr. Universe -- he was as excited as a schoolgirl with a crush on a pop star.  And this in a man who is the godfather of Queen Beatrix!"

A crush on Reg Park?  Shouldn't marry?  Was Hein gay or bi?

We keep our suspicions to ourselves.

Lane offers Sammy some of the letters. He takes four, including the last, written to Rosa in Los Angeles.

It ends with "After all, my dear Rosa, vriendschap is het enige dat telt."

Friendship is all that matters.

See also: A Beefcake Tour of Amsterdam