Ever wonder why you live where you live? Some of us followed a spouse to her home town. Others stayed in the community where they grew up. Some were transferred by their companies. Others arrived, looking for work, adventure or romance.
Nietzsche had to say about the “Spirit of Place.” (No. I’m not schooled in Nietzsche. I ripped this off from Joseph Campbell’s, The Masks of God, Creative Mythology.)

“No one is able to live everywhere, and for one who has great tasks to perform that require all his powers, there is a very narrow choice. The influence of climate on metabolism, its retardation, its acceleration is so great that a mistake in the choice and climate can not only alienate a person from his vocation, but even keep him from knowing what it is:…..Just consider the places where men of great spirit live and have lived, where wit, raffinment, distain for comfort belong, where Genius almost inevitably makes itself at home: they all have marvelously dry air. Paris, Provence, Florence, Jerusalem, Athens—these names signify something: that Genius is conditioned by dry air by a clean sky--i.e. by rapid metabolism, by the possibility of gathering to oneself, again and again great even prodigious quantities of energy.”

Am I wrong, or are those generally wine growing areas?

I can’t speak for Paris or Jerusalem, but Athens is on the 37th parallel. Provence and Florence the 43rd—close enough. Is it simply a co-incidence that St. Helena shares on the 38th parallel within a nine iron of the epicenter of the Golden age of democracy and ancient Greece?

Like so many of you we are not Dr. Wood or Brignoli babies. We’re not “of” here. We moved to St. Helena to find a better life. It was over half a century ago that Jim Pop left the proverbial “concrete jungle” to pay a thousand dollars per acre for 12 acres out past the county dump in Conn Valley. How they laughed at us city folk. Who else would pay that kind of dough to buy Sherriff Simpson’s old place—up a mile dirt road 4 miles out of town?

I doubt Jim Pop knew we shared the 38th parallel with Athens.

What he did know was that the people were different. Wine makers were a unique breed of cat.

To War heroes and former coaches of mine, Truck Cullom and Chuck Carpy, the 38th parallel did not bring up fond memories. Truck coached at Cal and recruited up her. Chuck was born here, and coached us kids (like his dad, founder of Carpy Gang, Al Carpy did.

Truck had had a football coach who told him you weren't really hurt "'till your boots were filled with blood". As stretcher bearers were carting him off a Korean battlefield, Truck, told them he thought he might be injured. "How'd ya' figure that?", came the medic's sarcastic reply. "Because my boots are filled with blood," said the ever wisecracking Truck.

Chuck rarely talked about his time in Korea. But on occasion (usually over Irish coffee up at the Lazy J while playing poker) he’d say, “I never sent men to their death. But I put men in positions where they died.” A man of few words, we never got the details.

It interests me that we live, free, on the 38th parallel in California because men like Chuck and Truck did what they did.

They fought in the “Forgotten War” that, like wars abroad today, were not popular at home. Names like Kunuri, Chosin Reservoir, and Chipyongni did not conjure up fond memories to them. Yet, today, South Korea is a flourishing, capitalistic, pretty damn free, democratic country. They owe it all to men like Truck and Chuck.

We owe what we have in St. Helena, to them too.

Maybe it is the due to climate change. But Schools taught pride. We were proud our football team had the longest winning streak—proud our band went to the Olympics—proud our grapes were the best.

We were proud of our country. Proud of our flag. Proud of our soldiers. Proud of our leaders. Proud of our schools. It was our nature. We were proud to be from St. Helena.

And don't talk about Pride going before the fall. That's about vanity. We're talking about Being justifiably proud of accomplishments--and origin.


Metabolism? Climate? As Nietzsche noted, “Men of great spirit—where Genius makes its home”—you’ll find it on the 38th parallel. In the final analysis it’s not why we live where we live—it’s how we live there.