Noisy drainpipes

We have a noisy drainpipe just outside our bedroom window. When there is a light rain or a heavy fog, it does that drip, drip, drip thing. It get's annoying. It's been on my fixit list for some time. This morning, I was awoken by rainwater coming down that drain pipe. I laid in bed listening to it for a long time. I remembered that it was still on my fixit list and decided it was time to do something about it - Today! So, I removed it from my fixit list. I can live with that ocassional drip, drip drip, if it means I'll be able to hear the sound it makes when we're getting serious precipitation... and we are. And it sounds great, even at 3:30 in the morning.

Cover crops/Mustard/Anna

Recommended viewing: The Cork Board recently produced a short video:
Vineyard mustard: just for looks or does it serve a purpose?




It’s a neat little video. In the video, they make the point that mustard, in addition to adding to the beauty of the vineyards, is a cover crop. Much of the mustard you see in the vineyards is an indigenous plant that reseeds itself. But many growers also spread their own blend of cover crop seed, that may or may not include mustard.

I thought that I would expand just a bit on what cover crops are.

Wikipedia does an excellent job explaining cover crops: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cover_crop
Summarizing: Broadly defined, a cover crop is any … plant grown to improve any number of conditions associated with sustainable agriculture. Cover crops are fundamental, sustainable tools used to manage soil fertility, soil quality, water, weeds (unwanted plants that limit crop production potential), pests (unwanted animals, usually insects, that limit crop production potential), diseases, and diversity and wildlife, in agroecosystems. Agroecosystems are ecological systems managed by humans across a range of intensities to produce food, feed, or fiber. To a large degree, humans shape the ecological structure and function of natural processes that occur in agroecosystems. … Farmers choose to grow specific cover crop types and to manage them in specific ways based on their own unique needs and goals.
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Every vineyard whose grapes go to Pina Napa Valley is planted with a cover crop. Deciding on what plants should be included in the cover crop blend has become a sophisticated science for premium wine vineyards.
The consulting service that Pina Vineyard Management uses made the following recommendations for our D’Adamo vineyard:

It’s been said that great wines are made in the vineyard. As you can see, the attention given to planting the best cover crops would support that argument.

When pressed, our winemaker said 90% of a wine is made in the vineyard. Sharp cookie, that Anna, and diplomatic, too. Anna is also quite the patriot. She once said that she loves this country. She said that, even though current law would prohibit her from ever becoming president. Why is that?

Is it because of the extremist cult she belonged to in college?

If so, she didn’t mention that on her resume.

Is it because of her anti-war protest arrests of the 60’s?

She wasn’t even born yet.

Is it because she’s married to an I-talian?

No, that would only keep her from getting elected (I sure hope Mario has a good sense of humor).

I’ve asked her to tell that story in a future blog, and I guarantee it will be more interesting than anything you’ve read here today.

Ciao, Ranndy

Drat those bats!

I’ve considered myself an environmentalist for over 30 years now. I used to spend hours with the latest edition of The Mother Earth News and tried to reduce my carbon footprint long before the term had been coined, or at least became widely used. So in the early 90’s, when a family of bats moved into one of the walls of our winery, I thought it was pretty cool and that we could peacefully co-exist. And we did, for quite some time. The problem was, the bats wouldn’t leave their humble abode to defecate & urinate. And after a while, the bat generated odor was not conducive to tasting fine wines. We just had to convince these much maligned little mammals that their quality of life would be better at a new address. My first effort to do this involved beating on the interior wall with a board. I figured that anything that was 50% ears would not take kindly to this treatment and leave. Not so, and yes, I still feel guilty about doing that. So I did a little research on bat eviction, and discovered a bat exclusion method. The suggested method was to make it possible for the bats to leave their home, but not be able to return. So I placed two flaps over the opening that would allow the bats to exit between the two flaps, but not be able to find their way back in between the flaps. And it worked… sort of. They couldn’t get back in, so they took to hanging on the board under the flaps. This was as close to “home” as they could get. And my guilt increased. It was time to call in professional bat people. I called Greg Tatarian of Wildlife Research Associates ( http://www.wildliferesearchassoc.com/ ).
Greg surveyed the situation and built a bat house of his own design, to provide a more attractive alternative to our little friends. He mounted the house in the winery eaves. And it worked… sort of. The bats moved in and began multiplying and eventually overpopulated the house. Two years later, in 1997, Greg built a second bat house to accommodate the increased population and attached it close to the first bat house. And it worked… sort of. The bats moved in there and overpopulated that house, too. This only became evident during periods of extreme heat. To escape the congested habitat and extreme heat generated inside the house on those afternoons, large quantities of both infant and adult bats would move to the outside of the box and cling on to the outer surface as much as possible. It was very disturbing to witness the infants that would fall to the ground unable to navigate to escape the heat. Efforts to return them to their bat house would prove unsuccessful. In the winter of 1998, the houses were removed from the side of the winery and mounted back-to-back on steel poles partially shaded by Eucalyptus trees to provide a cooler site with better air flow. And it worked… sort of. The number of bats inhabiting these houses was estimated at between 600 & 900 at one point. Occasionally during the summer months, Cindy & I would have friends up to the winery right around sunset. We would set up aluminum chairs and sip wine while waiting for the bats to exit for their evening of feeding. First, one or two would come out followed by maybe 3 or 4 more. And then it was like the order was given to vacate the premises. Over the next minute, the bats poured out of the holes in continuous ribbons. It was very exciting to witness one of nature’s finest moments.

One summer period of extreme heat occurred so early in the day, that the houses were still in the full sun. I was saddened by yet another significant die back, mostly of infants. That winter, we relocated both houses, still on the poles, to the interior section of an old Oak tree by one of our vineyard blocks. This was to provide shade at all times of the day. And it worked… period.
So, we are landlords to two different types of bats; The Mexican Free-tailed bat and the Pallid bat.

I read with interest a recent article (By ROBERT DIGITALE) in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat about bats. Patricia Winters, president of the Forestville-based California Bat Conservation Fund gave a presentation to grape growers and pest workers on the value of bats in insect management.

The following excerpts are from that Press Democrat article.
RE: The Mexican Free-tailed bats
"She's a little bat," said Winters, known to Bay Area schoolchildren as the Bat Lady. "But she can fly faster than any other bat in the world. And she can fly up to two miles high, and all she eats are crop pests."
Winters showed graphics from Doppler radar and thermal imaging to depict billions of moths moving north from Mexico into southeast Texas at a height of almost two miles. Each night the moths run into what Winters called the largest concentration of mammals on the planet, an estimated 200 million Mexican free-tailed bats living in caves outside Austin and San Antonio.
Only 2 percent of the moths ever make it past the bats, which can fly at speeds of 60 mph, Winters said. One recent study estimated that the bats prevent about $1 billion a year in U.S. crop damage.
RE: Other bats
Winters told the group that a lactating Big Brown female bat, a species found in Sonoma County, can eat twice its weight in insects each night.
Kathy Cowan, who volunteers with Winters, said she has a standard argument for convincing women about the value of bats. She focuses on the work the animals do in pollinating tropical fruit and reseeding rain forests.
"If we didn't have bats," Cowan said, "we wouldn't have chocolate."
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Click here for the entire article and to see a great picture of a Pallid Bat:
http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20081213/NEWS/812130315

The Black Sheep of the Pina Family

Wikipedia tells us this about the term Black sheep:

Black sheep is an English language idiom which describes an odd or disreputable member of a group, especially within one's family. The term has typically been given negative implications, implying waywardness.[1] It derived from the untypical and unwanted presence of black woolled individuals in herds of sheep, which was undesirable because wool from such sheep could not be dyed.

All four Pina brothers attended St. Helena public schools, and since there are only about six years separating us, we shared lots of the same teachers. One teacher that we all had was Martel Cooper. He taught the Ag Classes and metal shop. I liked Mr. Cooper, even though after one incident at school, he referred to me as the Black Sheep of the Pina Family. I accepted that he was accurate in his assessment, and carried that burden with me through the years. My guilt lessened over time as I heard more & more stories about the escapades that my brother John participated in. By comparison, my activities were quite tame. So maybe it’s a good thing that the word “sheep”, can be singular or plural. Because I’m convinced that in this instance, the Black Sheep of the Pina Family should be a shared title.

For most of our open–house type events, all four brothers will be there participating. I’ve had as many questions from of our visitors about the 4 brothers, and how they get along running the winery, as about the wine. We’re all very different, but we are able to have lively discussions at our weekly meetings and arrive at consensus decisions fairly well most of the time. Of course it’s easier, quicker and better if they just agree with my views early on in these discussions (And I’m still working at convincing them to adopt that philosophy).

One area we differ on, is our favorite Pina wine. I think I’m alone in preferring the D’Adamo over all the others. Now if I’m having steak or lamb, I might go with the Buckeye Howell Mountain Cab. But since that doesn’t happen very often, I drink more D’Adamo than all of our Howell Mountain, Oakville, Rutherford and Yountville Cabs combined.

With that in mind, I was pleased when the following blog was posted:

http://www.chow.com/wine_and_drinks/5570 (Updated on 1/20/2009)

D’Adamo was finally getting the recognition I felt it deserved. From this, I couldn’t be sure the writer would prefer the D’Adamo over the others. But he thinks it’s pretty good wine so I’ll accept the Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell strategy with his endorsement. In no way can/should it be considered a Black Sheep within the Pina wine family – Not sure I can say the same about brother John.

Treading Lightly – The Kubota Secret

The Kubota Secret

I have several childhood memories of growing up in the middle of vineyards. One of the images that I’ve carried with me is my father driving a Caterpillar D-2 pulling a disc through the vineyards on a brilliant spring day. There was a lush crop of Mustard, so tall that the tracks of the CAT were not visible – Just the upper half of the tractor floating through the Mustard with my dad at the helm. There was a small flock of red-winged blackbirds following closely, ready to swoop in and snatch earthworms as their world was turned upside down.

Over the years, Pina Vineyard Management (PVM) has had many Caterpillar tractors. They are great machines. In recent years, we’ve been adding some John Deere tractors to the fleet. The overwhelming factor when purchasing these tractors was function. They were chosen to get the job done, pure & simple. And PVM also has lots of Kubota tractors chosen for the same reason.

In the Spring of 2006, the local Kubota tractor dealership approached us with a unique proposal. Kubota had been working on a new tractor and they needed somebody to give it a well rounded field test: Work it hard, find its strengths & weaknesses – If you find problems, we want to know. Say no more, just give us the key. But, they said, there is one more thing:

Keep it a secret.

The tractor was delivered on an overcast day after a period of rain. It came with at least a half-dozen Kubota Engineers that were eager to test the metal of their baby. Their enthusiasm was admirable. After several hours they left and headed back to Japan.

After looking at the top picture, you may be wondering what the big secret is. It’s the side-view picture that will give you the answer.

Yes, a wheel tractor that also has tracks or a tracklayer that also has wheels.

Pina Cellars (in cooperation with Pina Vineyard Management) hosted the Kubota new tractor unveiling for the media and some local farmers. In the picture above, that’s brother Davie explaining our involvement with the project and describing our “testing” of the new Kubota Power Krawler.

You can check out the Kubota website for more information:
http://www.kubota.com/f/aboutkubota/prl67.cfm

If you do, note the pictures that were taken in the PVM vineyard that sits high above Miner Winery. It’s a bit too steep to feel comfortable in most tractors.

After a day of testing - Kubota’s dirty secret

This is beginning to sound too much like a Kubota advertisement, so I’ll get to the point that I intended to make. And that is that new vineyard equipment is changing to meet the needs of new vineyards.

New vineyards/old vineyards, what’s the difference?

Well, for starters, new vineyards are typically planted in much closer rows than old vineyards. My dad’s old CAT D-2 wouldn’t fit down the rows of most vineyards planted these days. As a result, many tractor manufacturers are now offering narrow gauge tractors.
A growing concern among growers is soil compaction. Those old CAT D-2s looked pretty heavy, and they were, BUT the weight was distributed over a much larger area than today’s wheeled tractors. And that’s one of the big selling points of the new Kubota Power Krawler. It doesn’t compact the soil as much as a similar sized wheel tractor. How innovative of Kubota you say? Well, yes and no. It’s not like they invented the concept.

Photo courtesy http://www.fightingiron.com/FI-Heritage.htm

PVM gave the Krawler a thorough testing with several different implements and we were impressed. PVM now owns one of the new Kubota Power Krawlers, and will continue testing another production model for Kubota. Great machines – but I’m thinking the image of the driver sitting in a “climate controlled” cab with the high tracks visible while discing down the mustard is going to fall short of my recollections from the good old days.

Screw caps vs corks

A lot of people are on the fence when it comes to screw caps vs corks. For the most part, they think great wines have corks. Yes, screw caps are convenient, but…. Great wines have corks. But I wasn’t one of them. Nope, not me - I could only see the advantages of screw caps. I felt I was being very logical about the whole issue and a screw cap would always preserve the wine quality as good as a cork. And there is no possibility of cork taint, so we should be putting our wine in screw caps.

At least that’s the way I used to feel.

It’s the evening of New Years day and we are at our trailer at Dillon’s Beach, Lawson’s Landing to be exact. Earlier today our new neighbors from Roseville rolled in. We really didn’t know them very well, so when they invited us over for a glass of wine after our sunset walk, we accepted. Nice people! One glass turned into two glasses, and so on. Eventually (They might say Finally) we left & returned to our trailer. We finished off a partial bottle of wine and I selected another to open. By now, I have discovered wisdom and a keen insight into all things philosophical. As I pushed the point of the cork screw into the cork, I surmised that if I had a screw cap bottle, I would already be pouring the glorious nectar. And then I focused on the task at hand. The cork screw had penetrated the cork far enough for me to start the actual screwing process – sorry if that sounds unrefined, but as I was searching for more appropriate words those inappropriate words called out to me first. In that state of mind it was mesmerizing to see the corkscrew getting shorter & shorter. The screw part had all but disappeared when I stopped screwing. And then there was that 2 stage leverage applicator thing. Remember the lever? That’s the thing that first separated us from the other animals. We used it to move rocks around and make fire rings as we waited for someone to invent fire. That 2 stage lever thing makes pulling corks so easy and in my current frame of mind, almost fun. So when the cork had finally & officially exited the bottle, it seemed a victory had been earned. It was cause to celebrate, so I poured My Rudder & myself another glass of wine. I frequently tell my wife Cindy that she’s my rudder in life. That if not for her, I would just float around aimlessly, without direction. Because of that, she’s “My Rudder”. Now that I think about it, I guess she is also my propeller. But try to stay focused, I’m telling a story here.

So anyway, that whole time and labor-intensive process of removing the cork struck a chord with me. It seemed just the right thing to be doing. It was the proper introduction of that wisdom & philosophy inducing beverage as it splashed in the glass. In less than a minute, I had gone from being a screw cap proponent to being on the fence with those other folks. And why is that? Tradition! And as I type that word, Tradition, I can’t help but note the similarities between myself & Tevya from Fiddler On The Roof. Because of tradition, I find myself balancing on the fence the same way the fiddler balanced on the roof. And I have a profile similar to Tevya. Ah yes, If I were a rich man…

Footnote: Yes, when I wrote that I was guilty of BLUI (Blogging under the influence), so cut me some slack. But I do recommend those 2 stage cork-pullers.

Harvest 2008 by Anna Monticelli

The 2008 growing season started with below average winter rainfall, which primarily fell in early winter, for the second year in a row. This predicated smaller than average berry size and lower cluster counts. The combination of an early bud-break and freezing spring temperatures that continued for weeks on end between mid-March and mid-April had devastating effects on many vineyards in the Napa Valley. Some say this was the worst spring frost in Napa Valley in the past 30 years. Some of the young shoots were affected in our D’Adamo and Buckeye vineyards but our other vineyards amazingly escaped unscathed.

During bloom, the extremely hot temperatures coupled with high winds made for a poor berry set. Although this greatly decreased our yields, we benefited from loose medium sized Cabernet clusters.

During the summer there were many wildfires here in Northern California. Many winemakers and viticulturalists worried about the possibility that the grapes could be tainted with smoke flavors. Thankfully, not only were our Piña vineyards unaffected, but I haven’t heard of any Napa Valley vineyards with this problem.

The 2008 vintage was approximately 1 week earlier than average. We had two heat-waves back to back at the beginning of harvest (end of August/early September). This resulted in some shriveled berries and very rapid sugar accumulation. These heat waves were also a contributing factor to the extremely low yields. Here at Piña Napa Valley, our grape yields are down approximately 40% lower than average.

After the initial heat waves, the weather remained very mild and temperate ensuring optimum slow ripening and extended hang time conditions. It rained on October 3rd into the 4th, but the amount of rain was very small and the good weather before and after the rain resulted in no negative effects on the crop.

At Piña Napa Valley, we began by harvesting the Ames and Firehouse vineyards on September 8th and the Stice’s Stone Corral vineyard on September 12th. We continued harvesting with the D’Adamo vineyard on September 26th. We made several harvest passes through the Wolff vineyard during September and October to ensure harvesting only perfectly ripe fruit. We picked the Buckeye vineyard on October 17th, 27th and 29th.

The resulting 2008 wines are very promising. They have great color accompanied by good tannin structure and mouth feel. There is good concentration and acidity. Although we may not have a lot to drink this year, it will surely be enjoyable.

Anna Monticelli
Winemaker
Piña Napa Valley

Chip bud grafting / This Earth is mine

Trivia question: Who’s name at birth was Leroy Harold Scherer, Jr.?

He starred in a movie called This Earth Is Mine (released June,1959). Lots of the filming for this movie was done in the Napa Valley, especially in the Yountville, Oakville & Rutherford areas. It’s not considered a great movie, but it’s kind of fun to catch some glimpses of the Napa Valley landscape from 50 years ago. For those of you that haven’t peeked ahead for the answer, Rock Hudson was Leroy Harold Scherer, Jr. at birth. “Rock Hudson? Who’s that?” My 22 year old son Tyler asked.

I won’t go into the plot, but there is a scene where Rock needed to perform a fairly specialized procedure in vineyard operations – Chip bud grafting (AKA budding). Budding is the process of attaching a bud from one plant to rootstock. Rootstock is defined as a plant onto which another plant is grafted. There are lots of different rootstocks available, all with different characteristics. Some are more resistant to pests, Some handle wet or dry conditions better than others. And they tend to have no-nonsense names. Our Firehouse vineyard has 110R, 420A and 3309 rootstock. Once the rootstock has been decided, any variety of grapes can be grafted onto it. Cabernet, Chardonnay and Zinfandel can all use the same type of rootstock. For that matter, you could add a bud from each of these varieties onto the same rootstock for a vine that would produce 3 different types of grapes. Don’t know why you would want to do that, but it is possible. Not to further confuse anybody, but there are several clones of grape varieties, too. Our Firehouse vineyard has Cabernet Sauvignon clones of 2, 4, 8 & 337. The possible combinations of rootstock & varietal clone are almost endless.

I’ll follow this up with some pictures that should make the process easier to understand. Back to the movie: They needed somebody to teach Rock how to bud, and since he was left handed, they needed a teacher that was left handed… and this is where my great uncle Jim Pavon, enters the picture (figuratively speaking, only). He taught Rock how to bud well enough to pass for the movie. Rock even used Jim’s budding box & knife in the movie. I have always found this skill interesting, but apparently not as much as my brother Larry. Larry claims that when he was around 8 years old, he spent a fair amount of time budding and trying to get vine buds to grow. And he wasn’t going to be limited by conventional thinking. He budded vine buds onto Eucalyptus trees. Our dad told him it wouldn’t work, but he proceeded undeterred, and would give our dad daily updates on his project. Those are the trees visible directly across from the Plumpjack Winery tasting room. They appear to have survived Larry’s experiments, but we won’t be releasing a Cabalyptus wine anytime soon.

Did I mention that in-the-vineyard chip budding is hard on the back? This highly skilled work must be done on your knees. The chip bud grafting process is illustrated with pictures below taken by my brother, John C. Piña.

First, a varietal bud is cut from a pruned cane from a mature vine.
(This is an action photo - see it flying through the air?)

Then the 1st cut on the rootstock is made

2nd cut above first cut

2nd cut extends down to the first cut

And when that little section is removed,
the opening has been created for the chip bud

The chip bud is positioned in the opening
A tight fit is critical for the bud to grow*

This fit required an extra sliver of rootstock to be removed

Once the fit is perfect, a lightweight stretchy vinyl tape is wrapped around the new union to keep the new bud tightly embedded into the rootstock

And the top of the rootstock is cut off to force the rootstock to devote all of the growth energies into the bonding and growth of the bud

* After reviewing this post for accuracy at my request, John noted that while a tight bud fit is important, more important is getting part of the cambium layer of the bud to line up with the cambium layer of the rootstock.
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There are newer methods of grafting that are not quite so labor intensive, or skilled. Click on the following link to Practical Winery & Vineyard magazine for a more comprehensive overview of the options available.

http://www.practicalwinery.com/janFeb07/janfeb07p91.htm

Great info there, but John’s pictures are better!

California's Best Wines of 2008

Wine News feature story: California's Best Wines of 2008

Wine News has rated our 2005 Buckeye as one of California’s top 10 Cabs of 2008.

In their words:

Pina, 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon, Buckeye Vineyard, Howell Mountain, Napa Valley - Minty maraschino cherry aromas with hints of resin and cinnamon. Supple strawberry preserve flavors with a thick, nearly chewy texture. There is a richness front to back in this Cabernet with the wood tannins, fruit and minerals meshing nicely in the close. Drinking nicely right now and should continue to improve.

Very flattering and we are the least expensive wine on the list.

Click here for the full story:
http://www.thewinenews.com/current/feat.asp

Piña vs Pina – The Typewriter years/Casket Factory

Isn’t it sad, in a way, that many young people would not be able to identify what is in the picture above? Click here for more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Typewriters.jpg#file

So Joe (No, the structural engineer, NOT the plumber) tells me that he ran into somebody that knew me from high school. But that guy knew me as Ranndy Pina (pronounced pee-nuh), not Ranndy Piña (pronounced peen-yuh). So, what’s that about?

Piña vs Pina – Let me explain. My grandfather left Spain as Juan Mena Piña. He accepted the first name change to John in America, but he would never give up the Piña. But slowly, over the next half century, the name Piña would evolve into Pina for nearly all written communication. Some might say that was the expected Americanization of a foreign name. I think it had more to do with the typewriterization (yea, I just made that word up) of a foreign name. You see, that little squiggly thing (~) over the n in Piña is called a tilde.
Tilde is defined as: “a diacritic (~) placed over an n, as in Spanish mañana, to indicate a palatal nasal sound”
Tildes may have found their way onto typewriters in Spain and Mexico, early on, but not here in the good ‘ole U. S. of A. So without the tilde, folks had a tough time typing Piña and it would come out as Peenya, or something equally as bad. So for many years, we just accepted Pina. Eventually, typewriters and word processors added the tilde and we started the transition back to Piña. Using the tilde got even easier with the development of computers, but it also created some problems. Searching this document or the internet for “Piña” will yield different results that searching for “Pina”. Even now, some fonts & document formats can’t deal with the ñ, and will substitute some other symbol or just leave it out altogether. So even though Piña is the correct spelling, we will frequently just use Pina.

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12-29-08 - I just stumbled on another example of the digital difficulties of displaying "PIÑA":

But we thank The Cork Board for giving it a try. Now that's a blog worth reading. If you haven't checked it out, I recommend it.

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Most online dictionaries will interpret Piña as Spanish for Pineapple, but we prefer the less common interpretation to Pine cone, or fruit of the Pine. After all, we’re talking Spain.

We even incorporated pine cones into our first 2 labels.

This was the label we put on our 1st wine, a 1979 Chardonnay:

Note that 14.9% alcohol

We upgraded our label a few years later and the
Pine cones were embossed on the label

Yes, our first wine was a 1979 Chardonnay. We made it in a bonded winery on Action Ave. in Napa, of all places* (see my related story at the end). We were making some great wines through the 80’s, but even great wines don’t sell themselves. The Pina brothers did what they could, but the vineyard management company was growing too quickly and requiring too much time. After several years, we realized it was unrealistic to think our one employee could handle the winemaking and the sales. We had to let our one employee go and take a break from making (commercial) wine for several years. We leased space to other startup operations through the 1990’s. When we realized just how good the Cabernet was from the Howell Mountain Buckeye Vineyard, we decided it was time to get back into wine production.
Below is the original sign for Pina Cellars. Yes, some of you will recognize it as our current tasting bar. It was made from the barrel staves of a large redwood tank.


For Piña Napa Valley (AKA Piña Cellars 2.0), we decided to use
a tilde, or more specifically a red tilde, as our trademark.

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The Winery under Construction

Summer 1982 - Placing the 48’ long main beam (Davie on the forklift, Dad, John C.)

July 3rd, 1982 – Davie on the scaffold, Ranndy on the roof

Here is the story that I alluded to earlier:

It was a Wednesday morning in October, 1979 and I was waiting outside the winery on Action Ave for the owner to show up. His converted warehouse was right next to a casket factory that employed several special needs people. The special needs people started showing up for work and were waiting outside the building for it to open. I sat in my car facing away from these folks, but monitoring their arrivals in my rear view mirror. Then I saw him approach. He appeared severely disfigured, but I continued to look on as many folks do when passing a bad accident on the highway. I felt so sorry for him – That poor guy, having to go through life looking like that. As he approached the waiting group, they didn’t seem at all upset by his appearance – In fact they seemed quite happy to see him. They laughed and gave him high fives! I’m thinking: Wow, is this the reception he gets every morning? Then he put his hand up to his face and removed his mask. I felt duped. How could I have forgotten it was the 31st of October – Halloween! And then I reluctantly accepted the possibility that he was enjoying life more than me. It was a very humbling experience that I remember vividly 29 years later.