One morning on the mountain
By Sasha Paulsen
NAPA VALLEY, Calif. — A spring day: blue sky, drifting clouds and warm after so much cold. I decided to take a day off, my first in almost three months of steady writing and editing. I would go to Winters to have lunch with a friend, the writer and mutual Francophile Georgeanne Brennan. We have a tradition when our schedules mesh: I pick up a bottle of rosé and sandwiches from her favorite Napa spot, Fatted Calf, and we sit under the ancient walnut tree on her Winters farm and talk about life, writing and France.
This day I decided not to take Highway 80. Instead, I’d go over the mountain via Monticello Road, see what wildflowers were blooming and how much water was in Lake Berryessa.
Life has a way of changing the best plans. I was headed up the mountain when, without a warning, not even a single sputter, my car stopped. My trusty little red Honda, which had made an untold number of trips to Yosemite and Los Angeles and had even braved Iowa in January 2020 for the presidential caucus, just switched off. It had never done such a thing.
It could have been worse. It could have been on a blind corner on that tortuous road where cars zoom and often there is not an inch to pull over. No, it decided to stop at the edge of a large pullout. And there on the pullout was a deputy from the Napa County Sheriff’s Office. He jumped out of his SUV to see why I had stopped in this ramshackle way, part on, part off the road. He moved his SUV behind my car so that no one would crash into it; tried, without success, to get the Honda to start; ascertained that yes, it had gas; and called AAA because they would probably respond to him more quickly. Then he mentioned that he had paused at the turn-out to send a text message because it was the last spot on Monticello Road before mobile phone service on the mountain becomes spotty, if not non-existent.
It was one of those moments in life when you have to admit there might be a greater force in the universe looking out for its creations.
So there we were on the mountain, the valiant officer, braving his life to wave mad drivers around the vehicles, and me, wondering if I should, after all, believe in God. I did not know what else to do but offer him Georgeanne’s truffle butter and jambon sandwich. I knew I could not offer to open the rosé. He politely declined; he had just finished his lunch. I explained how I had decided to take a day off, my first since going to work for the Press Democrat.
A pause. You’re a journalist? Oh. Well, yes.
I should mention here that journalists and police officers do not always have the most peaceful relationships. Journalists are professional pests and often the last person a peacekeeping officer wishes to encounter, as they often do, in the midst of an emergency. From a journalist’s perspective, these same peacekeepers can be frustratingly circumspect and taciturn, reserved in answering questions and never inclined to spill more beans than they have to.
I am only grateful that, at this point, he didn’t tell me it was my turn to go stand in the road and direct traffic.
Instead, we began to talk. I said it was odd my car would drop dead as I had just had it in for an oil change the day before and that Jamie had told me I needed to get my spark plugs replaced soon, but I had not thought he meant within 24 hours. Jamie? Chuck’s Auto Repair? He went there, too. A great place, we agreed, the best mechanic in town.
Next thing I knew, we were comparing our respective jobs, which, for better or worse, catapult us into all kinds of unexpected situations. A case in point was a harrowing story that had unfolded in Santa Rosa recently, a terrifying assault on sheriff’s deputies from a man with an AK-47-style rifle, a chase and a gun fight that resulted in one deputy being critically injured. They had to fight the battle; journalists had to tell the story.
I gave him my word not to quote him since protocol requires that journalist inquiries go through a public information officer, but for that moment we were just two people on a mountainside waiting for AAA. And one thing he said has stuck in my mind, coming as it did from someone who often deals with the darker side of life.
“You just never know,” he said. “I like to believe that people are 99.6% good, maybe even more. But you never know.”
There are stories from that 99.6%, as well, we agreed. As much as journalists seem to live by the “if it bleeds, it leads,” creed, I said, people also love stories about animals, especially dogs.
He offered an idea: We could write about the police dogs, how they are selected and trained and what a day in the life of a police dog is like. I loved the idea. It’s on my list to look into as soon as I finish this story.
It seemed no time at all before the AAA driver pulled up. “Chuck’s Auto?” he asked. “Of course I know it. Jamie’s the best.”
After he had loaded up my recalcitrant vehicle, Deputy Olson shook my hand. And the man who, as far as I will always be concerned, had saved my life, said, “Thank you for all you do.”
Thank me?
Postscript: Jamie at Chuck’s Auto kept the Honda overnight, tested and retested it, and called the next day. It was running fine, he said. Apparently all the internal computers had stopped talking to each other or something like that. Its overnight rest was akin to turning off your computer when it starts to do odd things. Yet what an extraordinary moment resulted from a computer shutdown that left two people talking on a mountainside.
Now, I have to go get to work on the dog story.
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Sasha Paulsen is a Napa Valley-based novelist and journalist.
Thanks for sharing this story. It's good to hear about simple connections in this day and age.
I can’t wait to read Sasha’s upcoming story about training police dogs.