(Part III will finish up this story of the early days of grape growing in King City. We continue with the drive hauling grape rootings from Coalinga to King City over State Route 198.)
About two miles westward out of Coalinga there begins an incline over the hills and as it progressed, I found I had to downshift to keep up forward motion while not overworking the engine. But the truck kept losing speed as it climbed until the engine bogged down and I pulled over as much as the shoulder allowed. Now what? The truck wouldn’t go further uphill at all, so the only option seemed to back down the hill to level ground, a good half mile or more, all the while looking for a place where a level three-point turn might be possible.
Either option presented a dangerous situation for other vehicles no matter how scarce the traffic, so I made a decision. Turning the engine off, I put the shifter in neutral, released the emergency brake and started slowly rolling backward down the hill using the two large sideview mirrors for navigation. It seemed to take far longer than in reality it did, but luckily, I made to level enough ground that I was able to turn the rig around and head back to Coalinga. I had a phone call to make.
I made my way back to Coalinga and there I found a phone booth (you remember phone booths, don’t you?) and called the Southdown shop where Randy the mechanic informed me that “No, that engine doesn’t have enough power to climb steep grades when it is loaded. Didn’t anyone tell you that?” So, it was back to Interstate 5 and south to the intersection of State Route 46 and then westward to Paso Robles and then north to the shop. It was after dark when I got back to the vineyard, too late to offload the rootings so that would have to wait until the morrow. But a lesson was learned: never drive a vehicle unless knowing its capabilities.
I have a couple other stories about that truck. On one trip after a short stop, the starter made a horrible sound when I turned the key to get going again. This happened twice more while on the large vineyard in the other valley. So, I called Randy, again, back at the shop and he said if I had to make another stop, I should try to park on an incline in case I had to compression start the thing. And that is exactly what happened. Luckily, I was parked on just enough of a downhill when I popped the clutch it was enough to fire the engine. When I got back to the shop, Randy found that the starter was totally disconnected from the flywheel housing, hanging only by one bolt.
And those are a couple of memories from way back in the early 1970s when I and my coworkers brought the first grapes to the King City area. (I know that sentence is grammatically incorrect, I include it just to put my friend Karen, a former schoolteacher, in a tizzy when she reads it.) At that time, I don’t suppose any of us at Southdown, at least any of us lowly laborers, had an inkling of what was to come in the way of grape growing and wine making in the Salinas Valley. Growing up in Greenfield there were many yards that had grape vines growing, some table varieties and some for producing homemade wine, an especially popular thing to do among the Swiss. What wines I knew about were named Gallo and Rossi and Petri, and as advertised by “that little old wine maker, me,” Italian Swiss Colony.
As the 1970s rolled into the 1980s, the number of acreage of vineyards, vineyards of all sizes and shapes, increased as did the number of facilities for processing and shipping and the ever popular open to the public wine tasting rooms. I look back now and am gratified to know that for a short period of time, five-plus decades ago, I was among the few who helped turn grazing land into what is now San Bernabe Vineyards. And while I have never been a wine drinker and so do not add to their coffers, I am aware that the people at that vineyard are very civic minded and have donated to and supported many events here in King City. For me personally, I thank them for James. James is what I believe is congenially called an Aussie; someone from Australia. I don’t know what his expertise is exactly when it comes to the wine business, but I do know that whenever I have been around James, it is always a good time. Same with his family; one of them a talented addition to the arts community.
And so, dear readers, that brings to a close a story triggered by a drive over a road not traveled in many years. And that is how the memory works, we drive through towns and landscapes unseen for long periods, or we hear a song from our teen years, or watch a movie for the first time in 40 years and the mind reels off memory after memory of who we were at that time, of old friends and past events, of which some friends and events are now passed, and of how we viewed the world we lived in.
My suggestion to you is keep a journal. Write down episodes from your life, or at least record them in some permanent format, audio recordings or whatever, and make them available to family and whomever after… well, you know what after. Everyone has stories that may seem mundane to themselves, but are found quite interesting to others; were this not the case the world would be bereft of much fine literature.
Take care. Peace.
