If you want to know the future of St. Helena, just follow your nose. We forget how important our olfactory senses are to understanding the past, and in this case, the key to forecasting the future.

When most folks conjure up the past they visualize moments gone by—a snowy Christmas; firey red fall colors; green fields in spring.

These ocular visions are indelible—-though they may fade with time.

What is harder to conjure up, but never fades are distinct odors from the past. Often they hit us when least expected, and (usually) warm memories come scurrying back.

It could be the smell of your father’s pipe, an attic, your grandmother’s perfume, or the sent of molding hay in a barn.

There’s not one of us who grew up when St. Helena, that when confronted by the smell of new leather doesn’t immediately flash back to Mr. Fagg’s Sports Shop. Each spring the new baseball gloves would arrive and his shop would exude an aroma which would put Tony Llamas and his Corinthian leather to shame.

The same was true of the saddle shop down in Napa.

St. Helena was once shaped and defined by specific odors. We were an agricultural town and the sounds and smell concomitant with such an existence where everywhere.

Ask anyone what was the distinguishing feature of Zinfandel Lane? They’ll tell you it was the “odes” from Mr. Lambert’s Chicken ranch. In fact, much of this Valley carried the odoriferous scents of various types of manure. One learned to distinguish them all.

The Rockin’ R and Bettinelli’s dairy carried a different scent from Cavalli’s horse ranch.

Where a winery now stands on the Trail, a slaughter house once reigned supreme. Not only could you smell the manure and blood for almost a mile away, one could occasionally hear the rifle shots as the steers were shot between the eyes before the slaughter began. I think they went to clubbing them as a more human method—-or was it vice versa? At any rate, it was a different world back then.

Of course, it was situated on the Napa River (the Valley Sewer) so during the rains the muddy, bloody, detritus could be whisked away. Funny thing is that we had many more steel head back when the river was polluted by tanneries, wineries and slaughter houses.

Conn Valley Rd. was marked by the daily plume of smoke emanating from the never ending smoldering fire at the local dump.

After pruning in January fields every where sprouted plumes of smoke as the suckers were dispatched to the ether.

The hills were alive with smoke as well as folks like Willie the wood cutter plied their trade.

When frosts hit in late April or early may the Valley looked like Pittsburg in the 30’s as smudge pots blackened the sky and the smell of charcoal diesel and kerosene blanketed the sky.

A freshly mowed Carpy field smells the same in summer today, as it did back then. And the damp smell of wet grass under the lights on a Friday night will never change (OK. I lied. Now that we’ve got an all weather turf, that memory will be no more).

The prune dehydrator’s pungent smell let you know that harvest was on just as the smell of pomace tells us the grape harvest is underway today.

From foods to colognes, everyone has his favorite smell

But the greatest smell in our family was the soft, aromatic scent from the family hearth. Whenever one would see smoke coming out of a chimney, it was a sign that a family was home and most likely folks were huddled around a warm, roaring fire.

Corny though it may be, it was always a sign of warmth, love and family.

I’m sort of glad we are not shooting yearlings between the eyes, anymore. I think we’re better off without the blood and manure in the river. Pomace, though pungent, is much nicer than chicken manure on Zinfandel Lane.

And that eternal flame at the dump, had a bad odor and couldn’t have been good for anybody.

Ridding the Valley of many smells is probably for the greater good—-though it does eliminate some authenticity and brings in a degree of antiseptic existence. However, cleaning up the environment is good. Robbing us of romanticism and poetry—-bad.

And that’s what happens when the antiseptic busy bodies snatch poetry from our lives.

Our local City Council just voted to out law fire places—-in new construction of course.

This is considered progress—-at least to the sterile at heart.

It’s done in the name of health safety and welfare-- “particulate” matter, you know.

Yet, one can point to a health complaint about fire place smoke in St. Helena. In a town of 6,000 people and a couple thousand houses, there are just too few fireplaces and too much “air out there” to cause a problem.

And every year with local forest fires, more particulate matter goes into the air than all the fire places burning every hour of every day could ever put out.

There are no studies. No facts.

The reasons are garbled—-green house gasses, inefficient, global warming—-just lots of buzz words with no science behind them—-but a lust for power in front of them.

We are a funny species. We crave controlling others. The “Central Committee” is in all of us. Something about power corrupting and absolute power corrupting absolutely—and that if you follow your nose, you’ll see the demise of St. Helena as we know it--but more on that next week. (To Be Continued)


















Jeffrey Earl Warren
James Warren & Son
1414 Main St.
St. Helena, Ca.
94574
707-963-2748





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