Organolepticians Number Forty (June 13, 2003)

Wonder If We Know Just Who We Are

Yesterday felt like my birthday. According to the calendar, my birthday is still some ten weeks off, but yesterday my phone rang all day long with people wishing me well and congratulating me. A lot of the calls were from people wondering where, in the Northern California area, to get our wines. Here's a list:

I got dozens of emails expressing the same thing. Somebody I hadn't seen since my last year of high school (but whom I'd thought of many times, over the years) emailed me.

I got my picture in the paper! It was a huge picture, a full half-page. You could recognize my face across a crowded room! Man, it was fun! The San Francisco Chronicle ran this great story that Patrick Comiskey wrote about Edmunds St. John. It took up most of 3 pages!

People called and emailed each other to pass on the news about the article. Ed Durell called Steve Hill, and when Steve saw it, he called me.

It was on the Internet! People in Oregon and New York read it! Am I famous? I don't feel famous.

I ran a Google search at around 4 pm yesterday; I typed in "Steve Edmunds." The first item on the first page was the Chronicle story. Instead of a date, it said: "eight hours ago."

Then I read some more items on the first page. It's interesting -- when I see my name typed on a page I expect any information associated with that typed name to be familiar, so it was a shock to find that Steve Edmunds is a famous DJ in England known as "Intrakut." I booted up that item, and found a picture. Pretty good disguise. Worthy of the naughty Coyote himself.

When I came across another picture of Steve Edmunds, he was sitting with his soccer teammates, and looked like he could use a haircut, or a pint.

In a story on a WWA Wrestling website, Steve Edmunds re-surfaced as "The Nefarious One" in a match with one J.J. da Silva. The Nefarious One's evil brother Kaleb also got in on the festivities.

I also found Steve Edmunds at the wheel of an '85 Buick Regal bearing the #27. He and his wife Marsha live in De Leon Springs, Florida, and race at the Voluisa County Speedway.

Who are we, when we're not who we're used to thinking we are? (Can this sentence be diagrammed?) Can we fit inside someone else's skin? Imagine with his mind? Feel with his heart? Had I broken through into the shadow-world? (Jim Morrison, can you hear me?) This was really strange, but I couldn't stop, not yet.

I became the born-again head of Hearts and Hands, a Vietnam Vets organization. I'd given up my burden of responsibility for the safety of the world's souls, and Jesus was "walking point" now.

I became a doctor in Shropshire, England, head of a local medical committee. Turns out I was also an ex-pupil at the Hayes Manor School.

I found myself in a paramilitary group, known as the Ivy Dragoons, in Diamond Bar, California.

I worked in Maintenance, as a shift manager for the BMW Group plant in Oxford, England, and as a Public Works employee in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where, when I was injured, the City Council passed a resolution wishing me a speedy recovery.

I'm apparently also an I.T. expert to some, a tool-maker and precision engineer to others. I'm on the Tech Committee for the World Council, 14 fleet (whatever the heck that is), and also an organizer/administrator for a San Antonio Spurs fan club.

I'm on the board of the National Council of the Disabled in St. Lucia, in the Caribbean.

I was present (listed as a neighbor) at the Wasatch County (Utah) Board of Commissioners meeting on the 22nd of February, 2000. (My real grandfather -- this is me, the winemaker talking now -- grew up in Salt Lake City, so the Steve Edmunds at the Board meeting may, in fact, have been an actual cousin of mine.)

I apparently own a photography company in Maryland.

I seem to be the long-lost brother of John and Joseph Edmunds in South Dakota.

I'm known, by some, as the spokesperson for an international horse-breeders' syndicate.

I set a school record for the most 3 point shots made in one game, for Simpson College, in Iowa, back in 1983. More recently, I've been managing director of a company manufacturing "rugged racks and enclosures" for control rooms in the broadcast industry.

Nights, in West Seneca, NY, you might have seen me featured at the "Golden Nugget" Karaoke Club.

In Sydney, Australia, however, it's strictly the blues I play, my friend, though you could've seen me on guitar in the band "Super B." I play and sing in England, too. And I write songs (of course) for Castle Records.com/The Tower Music Group.

In my spare time, I'm a member of the Burnham Tennis Association, in England. We play on grass. You know -- lawns.

Did I get mistaken, in the nursery, for someone else's baby, and end up in some different life? End up on a bus to Berkeley, not Burnham? Did my teachers know who their student was? Did my dentist know whose cavities he filled? Did Jennifer Grimes know whose heart she broke? No, I didn't order the gefilte fish... Is this what's known as an Identity Crisis?

It was so much easier reading the Chron article. Patrick got it right. I know that guy. He's the real McCoy. I've seen his driver's license. It's him.

And the wines? There's no mistaking them. They know who they are. You can taste it.

Steve Edmunds