Who Do We Think We Are, Anyway?
By Eric Postman
What is it that they say? “Don’t let the perfect be the
enemy of the good.” I established this
blog in 2009 with the intention of posting regularly. I’ll admit I didn’t even attempt to post
regularly, but when I did, it rarely got finished. As a recovering English major (37 years
literate) and retired teacher, I let my need for perfection get in the way of
sharing what I had to say. So, excuse me
Clayton Lewis*, but I’m going to plow straight ahead.
From the Beginning
We are PoLo. No, we
don’t play games on horseback. The “Po”
is for Postman and the “Lo” is for Loquasto.
Deb and Mike Loquasto were Diane’s and my next door neighbors in
Yorktown, VA. We met in 2001, the year
our families moved into your houses. We
were an unlikely group. Mike was a full
colonel in the army, Deb a homemaker.
Diane and I were school teachers.
They were/are Republicans. We
were/are Democrats. Deb was a rabid
Yankee fan; as a Met fan since childhood, I despised the Yankees. And on and on, but somehow we forged a strong
friendship.
Sometime around 2006 Diane began having health problems, and
for about a year and a half she could not consume alcohol. Through countless trips to doctors, many
who specialized in futility, she couldn't find out what was wrong. Finally, one doctor -- who did NOT specialize in futility -- told her she had suffered esophageal damage from an anti-inflammatory drug. He told her to stay
away from beer and hard liquor. Wine was
her only option.
None of us were wine drinkers, but we didn’t want to appear
unsupportive. So, the four of us
attended a wine festival in Williamsburg, VA.
We learned many things that day.
1.
Wine was good.
2.
We preferred sweet wine. (That would change.)
3.
Virginia was an up and comer in the wine
industry.
4.
We didn’t like wine snobs.
5.
Wine was fun.
One of us came up with the idea of spending a weekend in the
Charlottesville area visiting wineries.
We didn’t have much of a plan, but our main goal was to visit Horton Vineyards,
maker of our favorite fruit wines. We
learned many things that weekend.
1.
Wine was really good.
2.
Dry wine could be good.
3.
There were about 185 wineries in Virginia. The VA wine map said so.
4.
We still didn’t like wine snobs.
5.
Wine was really fun.
We had such a good time that weekend, laughing and tasting,
tasting and laughing. You never really
know if you’re traveling-compatible with another couple until you go on a trip
together. We certainly were.
One of us came up with another idea. This one was more ambitious: visit every
winery in the state.
And so our journey began.
The number of wineries in Virginia has grown from 185 to 250ish, but it’s
a moving target. Every year we eagerly
await the publication of the wine map.
That’s when we discover which wineries have closed, which ones have
changed hands, and which ones are new.
In 2009, the Loquastos moved to State College, PA, and we
thought we’d never reach our goal.
But, one of us had an idea.
We could meet halfway and do “wine weekends” in Northern Virginia. With only 25 wineries under our belt, we were
naïve but fearless. The dream would not
die.
At first we strove for quantity. On one early trip, we visited nine wineries
in one day (big mistake). Then, we went
beyond Northern Virginia, and explored other regions of the state. We let #50 pass unnoticed, but when #100 was
within reach, we carefully chose a winery we thought we’d all like (Gray Ghost)
and had a grand celebration. We made our
own t-shirts, started a journal, met dozens of interesting people, developed
more sophisticated palates, and grew a little older. It took us about six years to hit #200.
When we planned our most recent trip, we didn’t even realize
that the four new wineries we’d on our itinerary were the same four new
wineries we DID visit on the previous trip.
Instead we mostly made revisits, returning to standout wineries we liked
or those we couldn’t remember. We went
to only one new one, Honah Lee (think “Puff the Magic Dragon” who frolicked . .
.). That was #221.
Now you know the back story of PoLo. Many things have changed since 2008. Our four boys have all grown up to be
men. When the “Lo”s moved, Mike retired
from the army. Diane left preschool and
became an elementary science teacher. I
had already left the classroom to be a technology specialist, but I moved to
another school district. Then, Diane
retired and started her own business (Training Wheels Consulting - http://www.trainingwheelsconsulting.com/) Mike has been working at Penn State and just
graduated with his second Masters just yesterday. This was a bucket list item from his youth. I just retired from teaching/technology at
the end of this past school year. Deb
and Diane lost their mothers. I lost my
father.
As our journey continues, I will try not to let perfect be
the enemy of the good.
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