Sunday E-dition: Farewell party held for lecturer Jay Greene
By Dave Stoneberg
NAPA VALLEY, Calif. — St. Helenan Jay Greene has such a love of history that he has spent the last seven years giving talks about the subject at the St. Helena Public Library. Recently a farewell party for Greene was held at the library, even though he does not plan to slow down.
Greene remains on the board of directors of the Institute of Human Origins, based at Arizona State University, with which he has been affiliated since 1987. That year he went on a safari with Donald Johanson, IHO’s founding director, who Greene says was “a very charismatic guy and I fell under his spell.” In November 1974 Johanson found the 3-million-year old fossil skeleton of Lucy, the woman who proved that early humans walked upright. The fossil remains were found in the Afar region of Ethiopia.
Greene said the recent release of a new IHO website kept him occupied, and he has spent years bouncing back and forth between work in St. Helena and work at ASU and the institute. The late Doug Ernst, former editor and publisher for the St. Helena Star, asked Greene to serve on the Star’s editorial board, which Greene did for about a year. He called the volunteer job “so much fun. It was a challenge, of course, as we were expected to do some work, including keeping Doug from writing some incredibly bad editorials. He wanted to go on a tear at whatever bad guys were in the offing.”
Greene grew up on Long Island, and his love of history began in grade school, when he took history textbooks home and read them overnight. He majored in history at Dartmouth College and spent nearly three decades as an agent and later part-owner of the General Steamship Corp., which was founded in 1920. He retired early because of declining eyesight and moved to St. Helena because it was a small town that he could learn to navigate by walking. Greene has a son and daughter from a previous marriage and a daughter with his second wife, Paulina, who became a U.S. citizen the same day they moved to St. Helena in 1985.
In 2015 Greene’s first series of eight talks was called “The Sundown Sea,” tracing the journey of many people across the continent and the expansion of the United States.
“That ended up being successful in that people enjoyed the talks, so in the next year I talked about a variety of topics,” Greene said.
Some years he gave two or three talks. Other years, though, he gave a dozen.
“I’m amazed at myself at being able to do the research and make it a meaningful talk. It did take some effort,” he said.
The talks were sponsored by the Friends and Foundation of the St. Helena Public Library, and Greene said they’ve been good to him because they’ve never told him what topics to address.
It’s difficult for Greene to say what his favorite topic has been in seven years. He has spent a lot of time on both European and American history, talking about Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, for example, as well as history that is older: Julius Caesar, Roman general and stateman, and the three Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage between 264 B.C. and 146 B.C.
Greene also gave two talks on architecture, one on Gothic architecture used in churches and one about the Golden Gate Bridge. He called the bridge “fascinating. I enjoyed so much the research that went into these talks. I would dive deep into the research and try to come back out in terms of making something useful as a talk.”
He added, “I’ve always had the gift of gab, and sometimes I talk too much.”
In the week just past, Tim Carl wrote about a collaboration in Napa that provides musical instruments to school children, a wine-pouring robotic arm in Calistoga and a new curated wine-tasting space in St. Helena. Paul Franson wrote about Will and Julissa Marcencia, who bought Napa’s KVYN and KVON, local radio stations, and their commitment to the local community. A new NVF contributor and former judge, Polly Webber, discussed the hurdles to immigrants becoming U.S. citizens, and UC Master Gardener Cynthia Kerson told of her experiences replacing a green lawn with another type of groundcover.
Looking forward, new NVF contributor Tony Poer profiles Ted Edwards and his four-decade-long career as winemaker at Freemark Abbey, Carl writes about the increase in Napa Valley wine mergers, Virginie Boone attends a sauvignon blanc tasting with the Gamble family, and the Napa Valley Weekender will appear on Friday with a listing of events from American Canyon and Napa to St. Helena and Calistoga.
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Dave Stoneberg is an editor and journalist, who has worked for newspapers in both Lake and Napa counties.
I’ve followed Jay Greene’s varied lectures, always learning from him. This recognition. of his range of interests was a natural.