Me! Of all people!

When Bernie and I lived in Napa, we were devoted readers of the St. Helena Star. They had a seemingly endless supply of stories about people who grew up on vineyards, pursued other avenues, and then, surprisingly, at mid-life, found themselves with vineyards of their own, often inherited from their families. The emphasis in these stories was always on the unlikely chain of events that led to this improbable picture. Who would have thought it? Me! Running a vineyard! All my life I tried to get away from vineyards…

Hollywood is full of such stories. Her parents discouraged her, but Rumer Willis is going to try her hand at acting (and she’s really good!). Jason ReitmanKasdanCoppola is a gifted director in his own right (he even raised his own money). It’s why I can’t take it seriously when Sherwood Schwartz walks the picket line with his son (Sheldon?)–who, in a stunning turn of events, found himself running the Brady Bunch at the age of tweny-three–and his grandson, a young writer who also somehow managed to find his way into the family business.

But I can’t completely claim the high ground, because my mother was a writer and my grandfather was a writer. I’d love to be able to emphasize the circuitous path I took to get here, but really I’m just another son of a vintner running away from grapes. Who would have thought it? Me! Writing scripts!

And yet the fact is, it wasn’t writing that got me through school, it was math. And I have a fantastic factoring problem I want to post. But I’d need to learn how to type exponents on my keyboard, and realistically that’s not going to happen.