San Francisco Elks Lodge is #3 of almost three thousand lodges nationwide and the oldest continuously operating lodge, which explains the hotel business and the 1890's-era leather ceiling and dusty showcases. The pool room contains a row of high-backed shoeshine chairs and ancient pool cue cases. There were bleachers and a bar off the racquetball court, and from the roof we could see into the bleak black windows of the St .Francis Hotel, Harry Denton's Starlight Lounge bling, and up the steep incline of Mason Street.

Despite needing an update to the facilities, to the gender balance (open to women starting in 1995), and to the membership age (Heather claims the average age was brought down from 70 to 40), Elks is quaint, and welcoming.

My ancestors, the early Germans built a stone altar to Hertha, goddess of domesticity and the home, during winter solstice. With a fire of fir boughs stoked on the altar, Hertha was able to descend through the smoke and guide those who were wise in Saga lore to foretell the fortunes of those at the feast.

To me, this is always the kind of time that's busy and cold and emotionally complicated but full of simple wonders... I agree with Earl W. Count, in 4,000 Years of Christmas, who likens Christmas to the web in a loom, where the pattern changes as the mind changes: "at first, we are not sure that we discern the pattern, but at last we see that, unknown to the weavers themselves, something has taken shape before our eyes, and that they have made something very beautiful, something which compels our understanding."

And thus shadows were cast as long as the sunny fall afternoon, and in the seasonal shades of a factory alive with the happy chugging of industry, and that of a dead and dilapidated building alongside the highway.

Some things never change!

Be it ever so humble, there IS no place like home.