Wonder If We Know Just Who We Are

Organolepticians Number 40 (June 13, 2003)

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:

Alameda
DuVin Fine Wines	(510) 769-9463
Albany
Solano Cellars	(510) 525-0379
Berkeley
Berkeley Bowl	(510) 843-6929
Burlingame
Weimax	(650) 343-0182
Calistoga
Palisades Market	(707) 942-6476
Campbell
Whole Foods	(408) 371-5000
Carmel
Rancho Cellars	(831) 625-5646
Corte Madera
Paradise Foods	(415) 945-8855
Davis
Valley Wine Co.	(530) 758-9463
Fort Bragg
Harvest Market	(707) 964-7000
Gold Spring
Capitol Cellars	(916) 853-3030
Healdsburg
The Wine Shop	(707) 433-8333
Kentfield
Woodlands Market	(415) 457-8160
Lafayette
Jackson's Wines & Spirits	(925) 284-4100
Mill Valley
Mill Valley Market	(415) 388-3222
Whole Foods	(415) 381-1200
Napa
JV Warehouse	(707) 265-2620
Oakland
Paul Marcus Wines	(510) 420-1005
Vino!-College Ave.	(510) 652-6317
Petaluma
Dick Warner Wines	(707) 789-9914
Vino	(707) 794-8066
Redwood City
K & L	(650) 363-8544
Sacramento
Beyond Napa	(916) 481-8665
David Berkeley	(916) 929-4422
San Francisco
Bi-Rite Market	(415) 241-9760
Cannery Wine Cellar	(415) 673-0400
John Walker Co.	(415) 986-2707
Whole Foods	(415) 674-0500
San Jose
Wine Galleria	(408) 298-9541
San Mateo
Draeger's Market	(650) 685-3725
Whole Foods	(650) 358-6900
Santa Rosa
Bottle Barn	(707) 528-1161
Wine Spectrum	(800) 933-8456
Sonoma
Sonoma Market	(707) 996-3411
St. Helena
Dean & DeLuca	(707) 967-9980
St. Helena Wine Center	(707) 963-1313
St. Helena Wine Merchant	(707) 963-7888
Yountville
Vintage 1870 Wine Cellar	(707) 944-9270

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

Join the organolepticians!

organoleptic: (ôr'ge nl ep'tik, ôr gan'l ep'-), adj. 1. perceived by a sense organ. 2. capable of detecting a sensory stimulus. [1850-55; < F organoleptique = organo- ORGANO + -leptique < Gk leptikós disposed to accept (lept(ós), v. adj. of lambánein to take + -ikos -IC)]
--Random House Webster's
College Dictionary

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