The story of the Raven's Roost
by Anton Zuiker on January 12, 2025
As promised, I’m posting the essay by my grandfather, Francis C. Zuiker, about the Wisconsin campsite that we called the Raven’s Roost.
I can’t say that I remembered the origin story of the site, although I’m sure my father has told me his version through the years. I found this essay in a pile of typewritten Zuiker Chronicles newsletters that I’ve collected from my father, aunts, uncles, and cousins through the years. This particular essay, which my grandfather wrote (under his pen name Frank the Beachcomber) probably around 1984 (when the family gathered for a jamboree and I think an aunt’s 25th anniversary), tells how the family came to own that piece of land and to name it.
What’s amazing to me is that it also answers a set of questions I’ve been grappling with over the last few years. Why won’t my 83-year-old father retire, settle down, relax? Even today dad is sending me photos of himself hacking at the bush below the house on St. Croix!
This essay, though, shows that he had a formational experience alongside his own father and brothers. That drive to clear a space is ingrained in him. The crows have spoken.
Raising of the Roost
There was no way of explaining that situation. It was spontaneous, and eventually proved to change the lives of all of us forever. There I was, my four young sons grouped around me on the edge of a jungle of stumps on the Pine Creek Flowage, when Terry came out with it. “Why can’t we have a place up here for ourselves?” His voice was more of a wish than a conviction.
For a sleeping car mechanic, with six young boys to feed, it was total fantasy, but my mind never was very realistic, so I had a ready answer for him. “You kids all work at the ball games. You get your pay every day. We’ll just drop a quarter in a coffee can every day and soon we’ll have enough to buy a lot up here.” It probably was the wrong thing to say. In a split second the rest of the kids jumped on the idea and it started a life-long family project that never ended.
In reality we had a rare work situation not enjoyed by many families. Early in life by trick of fate I had the opportunity to go to work in concessions at Wrigley Field, Comiskey Park, Soldiers Field and the Chicago Stadium. The pay was commission and on a daily basis and as an added bonus it meant free passage to all the major sports events in Chicago every day. It meant speed, weariness, cash and a waiting job for each of my sons as soon as they were sixteen years old. Of course half of their pay went to mother for our existence. Half of what was left had to go into a savings account for them, and they could spend the other half any way they pleased.
It was amazing how the quarters added up. Within two years, and by the time we had located a wooded knell over the Wisconsin Flowage, we had enough quarters to pay cash for it.
Chasing a fantasy can be exciting, but as we stopped along a dirt road and stared at the mass of brambles, pines, birches, and oak that was our lot, stark reality overcame us. In the middle of the wall of brush down toward the lake, giant white pines thrust their crowns above the timber shining like lighthouses on a wild sea. They served as our guides, as, armed with machetes, we hacked a trail downhill toward water. Owning a piece of land when you were a teenager might have been prestigious, but the four boys working around me were for the most part silent and I couldn’t help notice that the sight of the lake was going to be a welcome thrill.
When we finally did see the bay, I for one had mixed emotions. It was filled with logs, lily pads, and cattails. For a long time we just stood and stared at it, watching the ebb of ripples as big fish broke water and I could almost feel the limitless expectations of future finish, future fishing running through them.
“Well. We made it!” I encouraged Joe and Larry, Denny and John. “Now all we need is a name for our place.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Names began to fly fast, until the call of a distant crow set the tone. “That’s it,” I commanded. “The way you kids are yelling you’d think a thousand crows had landed here. We might as well call it the RAVEN’S ROOST.”
It was one thing having a name. It was another turning this raw, undeveloped forest, and timber-choked bay into something livable. None of us really thought it would ever develop a character of its own and grow along with our ever-increasing family. Yet for just a moment, the lot, my sons, and I seemed to fuse together, all bent on some unpredictable goal for the future.
It was apparent that for the moment a path through the brush for our car and gear was far more urgent. Necessity proved to be the mother of finality. A place for our tent became a reality, and a fireplace began to take shape and we already had plans for a well.
The impossible problems were too gigantic for us to comprehend, so we tackled the small ones, and the big ones faded into obscurity.
Some of the big ones were a little tricky. The stones under our tent turned out to be rocks as big as bushel baskets, so we dug and lifted them out with six-inch saplings and used the rocks for foundations for our growing fireplace. Trees, we discovered, can be as obstinate as some people. In clearing our campsite we found that power lines had been strung straight through the Raven’s Roost, and notching a tree, on a hill doesn’t exactly mean the tree will fall where you want it to. With the aid of ropes and sheer will-power and a few prayers, we guided a few determined birches away from that destruction-taunting power line.
Our water supply proved to be no problem, because our coffee can was now filling up with quarters briskly, with the addition of two new sons, who had reached sixteen years.
A border fence for the Raven’s Roost was foremost in the minds of all of us from the beginning, and the hundreds of foot-long pine saplings filling the lot gave us plenty of material to work with. By the time our pump was gushing forth crystal-clear icy water, we had set up young pines all along the downhill trail to the water, and completely around the lot. Each year from then on, I watched the kids and the pines grow into stalwart beautiful creatures into stalwart beautiful characters.
Within a few years the clearing beneath the tall two tall trees have been expanded to include three more tent sites nestled on the sloping hill where the sparkling river could be seen winding through the islands, and forest in the distance. What had even a more mystic impression over me was the cragly crowns of the two giant pines looming high over our campsites. It was obvious that being the highest point within miles also had been the benefactor of lightning bolts on many an occasion. Now, for about twenty feet of the uppermost portions, bark had been burnt away, leaving the the tree scarred and stripped. I began to get the impression that the Raven’s Roost had a darker side to its character also.
The two-week annual visit left no room for fear or speculation. The shoreline itself was another challenge to our growing family. It had been choked with logs and vegetation from the start and offered a formidable obstacle to fishing or even navigation. A brilliant mind had once said, “You can do anything you want, as long you take the first step.” Armed with bow saws and axes, ropes and hatchets, we jumped into the bay and started hauling logs up out of the water high enough so we could man-handle them.
Hauling is not exactly the right word. The ends of the trees and logs did peek out above the water, but we learned early that there was a lot of timber below the water line. Hacking an eight or ten foot piece of timber from a log standing upright in the lake can be a test of physical effort. Success did have its good side. Every salvaged log became another link in our growing wharf, which eventually became insurance against erosion.
Time really flies on wings when accompanied by work you enjoy. The Raven’s Roost and my sons matured with our efforts. The wharf grew solid and was the foray point for many a battle with bass and pike and even a stray muskie. It was the training ground for a team of fly fishermen of varying ages. Meanwhile the fireplace kept growing with each rock without a home, and every time a lightning storm rolled down the river, our two giant pines scattered a few more diadems from their crowns. Yet nothing ever remains completely still. All along the trail, from the dirt road to the bay, and completely around the Raven’s Roost, the young pines kept reaching for the sky.
There was a Silver wedding held on the roost a few years ago—not ours. We’re reaching for Gold. A lot of the newcomers there were from a new generation. They were the squealing kind, and their dads now put folding money into the kitty. Every day we could hear the call of the crows along the river and I had the feeling that there were a lot more of them around too now. In a way they seemed to be calling to us every time we rolled into the Roost, and they left the impression with all of us that the coffee can full of quarters had done quite a job.
Assume the name
by Anton Zuiker on January 11, 2025
Francis Zuiker, aka Frank the Beachcomber, at a craft fair.
My last couple of posts have mentioned my design project to update the brand for Zuiker Chronicles. I’ve also begun a project to digitize many of the thousands of slides, transparencies, and prints that I have collected from my father and across my traveling. Over on Wan Smol Blog (my microblog), I posted two of the first images I’ve scanned, including a delightful photo of my mother with her parents on her graduation day (from Northern Illinois University). I sent that to mom and she texted back, “My dad took his lunch break during my graduation.” Grandpa Sisco worked at the pharmacy in the DeKalb Clinic at that time.
I’m still working to convert Grandpa Zuiker’s essay about Raven’s Roost, but here I want to share the start of letter that Grandpa wrote to me in September 1996, right about that time that Erin and I had started application process to the Peace Corps. He titled the letter Flight into Fancy.
Life is a tightrope—each step taken forward leads to a new adventure. When I was a tiny, fat little pre-teeny-bopper I faced my dad and said, “Why did you name me Francis? Everybody thinks I’m a girl.”
My dad was a trimmer of Pullman Cars, and a non-ending student of Knocks College. If there was something he couldn’t do, he found a way to do it.
“There is no way you have to be ashamed.” he said. “You were named Francis after your mother and Cornelius after your father, and you are a Zuiker. There are Senators, Supreme Court Judges, Actors, and Generals, and they are all named Francis. It isn’t your name that counts until you do something with it!”
I love the sea. I have probably walked 10,000 miles of beaches and for the last twenty years have gone to countless craft shows and by now the Midwest is flooded with my driftwood fishermen, owls, eagles, parrots and seabirds, and I often think of the endless number of people who are enjoying these items. That’s why in the craft world I have assumed the name of Frank the Beachcomber, but I am still a Zuiker in every other sense and purpose. I often think back to my face-up with my father and I think I have come a long way. When I was a kid at seventy-five I got a thrill out of the fact that I was learning something every day.
I blogged here about the Zuiker naming tradition—my dad is Joseph Francis and I am Anton Joseph—and the nickname (mistersugar) that I took up beginning in Vanuatu. I glad to have found my grandfather’s letter and been reminded of the value of the name I carry.
Snow tonight
by Anton Zuiker on January 10, 2025
The first snow flakes started to fall during my coaching session this afternoon and by the time it was done, Oliver was already gearing up for sledding with his friends down the driveway. The woods around our house are beautiful tonight. After a walk outside, I returned to my desk to look through the folder of Zuiker Chronicles newsletters my grandfather had written. I found his essay about how Raven’s Roost, the family campsite in Northern Wisconsin, got its name. I don’t remember ever reading this. It’s a good story. Tomorrow, after a morning run in the woods and a hot cup of coffee, I’ll work on transcribing it to share here.
Short update only tonight
by Anton Zuiker on January 9, 2025
I have a list of topics to blog about, but won’t be writing much tonight since I’ve spent the last hour working on a design project to update the brand for the Zuiker Chronicles. I think I’ve found a good partner to create the logo and icons I’ll need. More on this collaboration soon, and, with luck, a new brand and web design by March.
For background, the images above shows the previous brands I’ve used for this site. The first design for the Zuiker Chronicles website, which I launched in July 2000, depicted aspen trees at the family campground in Wisconsin, which we called Raven’s Roost. Then, from 2005 to 2015 I used a design featuring a raven and a font reminiscent of a vintage typewriter (my grandparents used typewriters to keep their far-flung families informed). Since I simplified my life and web activities in 2015, the site has not used a logo (although I did add a typewriter icon on a whim, never liked it but never got around to taking it off).
Celebrating craft breweries
by Anton Zuiker on January 8, 2025
The NYTimes has an interview with their own Joshua Bernstein who “was writing about bars and nightlife when the craft brew wave started to rise.”
More breweries closed than opened last year, explains the intro, “the first time that has happened since 2005.”
In the interview, Bernstein recalls when he recognized the craft brewing trend beginning.
Probably around 2003 or 2004, I started seeing this big wave of craft breweries opening up across the country. It felt like something was happening.
I guess the beer writer for the paper of record should know when the craze began, but I’m proud to say that I recognized the trend in 1997 when I featured 10 small breweries in a spread in Northern Ohio Live, the magazine I edited.
I blogged about that spread in 2013 here on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Great Lakes Brewing Company. (I have Great Lakes beers in my fridge even now.)
I’m still trying new brews. On my recent trip to Minneapolis, I visited three breweries (Modist, Fair State Brewing Cooperative, and Inbound BrewCo) and enjoyed the Lift Bridge Mango Blonde at the airport. My NOL spread and blog post highlighted a different Lift Bridge brewery. I’m glad the name lives on.
My brother-in-law Tom introduced me to the Untappd app for keeping a beer journal. Tom has me beat by hundreds and hundreds of check-ins (he’s partial to IPAs). Since 2019, I’ve had 102 check-ins on 97 beers with an average rating of 3.74. The styles I’ve tried the most are American pale ale and lager, German-style pilsner, Kölsch, and fruited sour.
I’m just back from pick-up soccer and on a high from scoring a hat trick. I’d love a beer right now, but Erin and I are pledged to a dry January.