E Clampus Vitus.

Today, I wanted to write a post in celebration of a niece whose birthday it is.  (She's actually a leap-year baby, but y'know.)  Vino-niece, La Serenissima's oldest daughter, is a historian so I thought I'd do a quick Napa-history bit in her honour.  How do I possibly connect my niece, history, England, Utah and Napa together?  It could be tricky, but - with the help of an inconspicuous little plaque on the Silverado Trail, north of Yountville, against the fence of a Napa County corporation yard - I think I can pull it off.
I first spotted this modest plaque last year whilst I was stuck in traffic, but I wasn't able to photograph it until yesterday as I drove home from work on a deserted Silverado Trail.  Erected by E Clampus Vitus (ECV), Sam Brannan Chapter 1004, an organisation dedicated to the preservation of the heritage of the American West, the plaque marks the location in the Napa Valley of a World War II prisoner-of-war (POW) camp.  Apparently, the United States aided Great Britain with the detention of a surplus of POWs: Germans some of who, upon release, returned to Germany and then made their way back to eventually settle in the United States.
An interesting little history-factoid, or not?  ECV's motto is, improbably, Credo Quia Absurdum which, roughly translated from Latin, means "I believe it because it is absurd."  Titter, titter.
Happy birthday Vino-niece!

Oil on water.

I have recently noticed that there are a lot of Tesla electric cars in the Napa Valley.  A lot. There was a time when spotting a Tesla was a rare event, but now they are ten a penny. Yesterday, a dusty, brown Model S sneaked up on me outside the Oakville post office (those things are dangerously silent).  Then today, on my way to work, I was behind a Model S that had decided that I was going to drive up to TWWIAGE at no more than 35 mph.  God love 'em!
The shiny, navy blue Tesla of this morning was brand spanking new and, as yet, had no license plate.  In lieu of a license plate there was a card that read 'ZERO Emissions'.  Well, obviously there are zero emissions, it's an electric car. However, the power station responsible for generating the electricity to power my friend, the tortoise-like Tesla, is most definitely not pumping out zero emissions into the atmosphere: the generation of electricity is not without consequences.  That fact, unfortunately, just happens to be an inconvenient detail that most electric car owners seem to ignore. Generally, I have discovered that just ignoring, and denying, reality doesn't make it simply disappear. My musings reminded me of a story that I read in the Napa Valley Register last month.
A short road that dead-ends at the Napa River, and is soon to be developed with a 489 unit apartment village, is to be renamed.  The current name, Oil Company Road, has been deemed unsuitable for the new residential complex and so the road is to be renamed Sousa Lane West (the continuation of a small road on the other side of Soscol Avenue that heads east to the Silverado Trail).  And why is someone bothering to rename Oil Company Road?  A spokesman, when asked this question, said, "We chose to change it because of the confusion of 'oil company' with 'oil cans'; it carried a derogatory feeling to it." What? How fragile are the psyches of the folks who will eventually inhabit these new apartments? Apparently, history has to be forgotten, or worse rewritten, to save these apartment dwellers from the perceived horrors that are fossil fuels.
In the 1890s, this part of Napa - along the river, but on the opposite bank to downtown - was a dockyard area mainly occupied by gasoline wholesalers who when the demand for petroleum grew supplied that demand.  The flourishing industries that relied on the gasoline wholesalers were tanneries, mills, cream of tartar factories (there were a lot of grapes here, even then) and, of course, the power plants that supplied the electricity to these industries.  The same electricity that powers the myriad of Tesla motor cars that are tooting around the Napa Valley today.
I am glad that I got a photograph of the Oil Company Road sign before it is removed, and before the powers that be rewrite Napa history to the absolute detriment of future generations of Napa Valley residents.

Out with the old.

Out with the old, but not necessarily in with the new.
Usually I am not one for making New Year resolutions, but this year I have resolved to declutter my life.  I just have too much stuff.  I am challenging myself to throw out, or recycle, at least one item a day.  The item to be binned does not have to be something substantial, it just has to be something that I no longer have a use for and is just sitting collecting dust.  I am doing good so far: I threw away three things today. Vinomaker dug up this bottle of Jackson's Napa Soda down by Vinoland's creek a few months ago and it has sat in his woodshop ever since.  I have decided, for now, that it can stay.
Napa Soda Water was bottled at a natural springs, located on Soda Canyon Road, between 1875 and 1929.  The property eventually became the Soda Springs Resort which was owned and operated by a Colonel J. P. Jackson.  The property had an interesting history: it was eventually destroyed by fire in 1929.  Although this bottle is probably about 100 years old it does not have any monetary value, well, perhaps $10.00. But, seeing as Jackson is a family name, it's a keeper.  The bottle will have to be put to some use though, perhaps as a vase when the daffodils begin to appear in a few weeks time. This small piece of Napa Valley history has to have a job if it is going to stick around Vinoland.