A Hoosier recalls Napa Valley
By Glenda Winders
NAPA, Calif. — By way of introduction, I am one of the copyeditors who reads the Napa Valley Features stories before they come to your inbox. My job is to make sure the words are spelled correctly, the sentences are punctuated properly and the paragraphs make sense so that all you have to do is read and enjoy. The professionals with whom I work make my job easy, but even the best writers need an editor, and you can be sure that someone else will read this behind me.
It might surprise you to learn that I live in Indiana, but thanks to the miracle of the internet, I can work in the Napa Valley every day. Which might make you wonder why I would want to do that and how I came to be connected with this project. Once I tell you my own Napa Valley stories, I think you’ll see that I love it as much as those of you reading this do.
Many years ago my then-husband (and now friend), Bob, was doing his surgical residency at the David Grant Medical Center at Travis Air Force Base in Solano County. We were the first in our Midwestern families to live in California, so we had lots of house guests during those four years, and one of the places we always took them was Napa Valley.
Since our family members were mostly teetotalers, we didn’t stop for winery tours. But oh, how they loved the Hurd Beeswax Candles shop at Freemark Abbey. My mother and grandmother could spend hours in there touching, smelling and ultimately buying so many candles they had to ship them home because their suitcases weren’t adequate to hold them.
Another place I took them was the Robert Louis Stevenson Museum, then located in an old stone building and called the Silverado Museum. I had been brought up on Stevenson’s poems and stories, so what fun it was to take the grandmother who had taught me to memorize “How do you like to go up in a swing …” to see the writer’s memorabilia. The framed photo of Stevenson I bought that day still hangs in my home today.
Another of our guests was the priest from New Jersey who had helped my husband’s widowed mother raise him during some difficult teenage years. After our tour of Beringer Vineyards, we were browsing in the gift shop when I fell in love with a set of champagne-colored wineglasses with bunches of grapes etched on their bowls. Our budget didn’t allow for such luxuries, so I set them back on the shelf and went to the car. Then just as we were about to drive away, Father Pucci suddenly realized that he needed to use the restroom. You can guess the rest. He came back carrying a box that held the coveted glasses. They have moved around four states with me and are still among the treasures I bring out for special occasions.
Napa Valley was also one of our favorite getaways when my husband had a rare day off. We would head west on Interstate 80, exit onto Highway 12 and turn onto 29. When we rumbled over the old metal bridge across the Napa River, we knew we were there — embarking upon a ribbon of possibilities whose towns along the way beckoned to us with flavors and experiences. After I read “The Silverado Squatters,” we took our children for a hike up Mount St. Helena and picnicked at the silver mine where Stevenson and his wife, Fanny, spent part of their honeymoon.
In a no-credit writing class at Solano Community College, I met a woman whose husband had been one of my husband’s patients. Once we discovered our double connection, they invited us to dinner at their Napa Valley home. What I didn’t think to tell her was that I have a weird seafood phobia and can’t stand to eat it. What did she serve that night but mounds of rice and curry sauce, each with its own generous portion of jumbo shrimp resting on top. Bob remembers watching in amazement as I chewed a mouthful of rice, smiled, complimented the cook and then swallowed each shrimp whole with a lurch that made me look as if I were having a giant hiccup. The couple graciously ignored my little sideshow and we had a lovely evening. The husband worked at Beaulieu Vineyard, so I do recall that the wine was quite nice.
Also while we were in Northern California I got a master’s degree at Sonoma State University. My program was designed for commuters who could only come to school at night, so two evenings a week I rattled across the bridge and up the valley to get to the campus. A faster, better way from Fairfield to Rohnert Park may have existed, but even if it did, why would I have taken it?
Years later, my second husband and I spent part of our honeymoon in Napa Valley. We liked wine but hadn’t done any serious tasting, and maybe 10 o’clock in the morning was a bit too early for a couple of amateurs to get started. By noon we had literally drunk the jug of wine Omar Khayyam wrote about in his poem, and neither of us was in any shape to drive the car. We bought a loaf of bread and spent the next hour sobering up in Lyman Park.
My Napa connections have continued and deepened. A decade ago, a wine writer from Los Angeles introduced me to Tim Carl, and we have been friends and colleagues ever since. Another close family friend is the owner of Aileron Estates. I have come back to the area to write stories, and during those trips I’ve found out that some things have changed.
The Robert Louis Stevenson Museum is now a wing at the library, there is no candle shop at Freemark Abbey, and the noisy iron bridge coming into town has long since been replaced. The signature industry is shifting as younger generations eschew expensive bottles of wine and would rather have takeout at home than pay a month’s salary for dinner in an upmarket restaurant. Their health-conscious parents are cutting back. Some of the places I remember have burned and been rebuilt. The wealthy build bigger and more luxurious homes now while many of the people who work hard to create this idyllic environment can’t afford to live there.
But the gestalt that is the Napa Valley will always remain a special place to me, one of the most enchanting and magical places on earth. It has a character and essence of its own that transcends what anyone does to spoil it or make it better. Drink wine or don’t, eat out or not, live in a mansion or drive up from Oakland, burn to the ground and recover, Napa Valley will always be – Napa Valley. And that’s why, even though I live 2,000 miles away, I still love being a part of it.
Glenda Winders is a newspaper and magazine writer and editor and the author of two novels, “The Nine Assignments” and “Sainted in Error.”
What a wonderful memory of Napa Valley.
Nicely done. Well written and nostalgic with my memories, too.