Being a child of much older parents, I was often reminded of “the Great Depression.”

There’s weren’t tales of bank failures, of going without food or loosing the roof over their heads. This wasn’t my parent’s experience.

My mother, though considerably less affluent than my father had been raised in Kansas, and later immigrated to California. My maternal grandfather had been a well digger and worked with his hands his whole life. Mother’s stories were of frugal want borne with dignity.

My father, born in 1906, the son of a prominent Los Angeles dentist might just as well have been from another planet. In fact he was: Planet Hollywood.

Family lore tells of their meeting through my dad’s best friend, Harry Cottingham (ever after known as Uncle Harry) who had just married a beautiful woman from Modesto. When my father asked the rhetorical: “Are there any more like her at home?” The answer was a resounding “Yes!” because my mother was an IDENTICAL TWIN.

Theirs was a whirlwind romance. Both were engaged to others: my mom to a boy who had made her a Cedar Hope Chest (she kept it) and my father to “the red headed gal from Texas.”

They met in September 1934 and were married on December 10th 1934, an engagement more like a tornado than a whirlwind.

It was a brave, if not rash act, their marriage. My father, though a graduate of Business College and working with a good salary, didn’t own any property. My mother was “Hollywood beautiful” but only had a high school education and had worked at J.C. Penny’s in Modesto.

They moved in with my dad’s mother. Not an unusual occurrence in 1934 or inconvenient since the widow Ethel Beazley lived in a Victorian mansion with a separate “apartment” for my folks.

My father always worked for very wealthy men. He was good with figures and as trustworthy as the rock of Gibraltar is solid. The work was steady, if not lucrative. His employers were rich, not him.

Here’s where the years of the Great Depression showed their influence.

My folks knew it was important to never waste; be it food, money or time.

My father NEVER was without a job. He would work all hours, miss vacations, and sacrifice his happiness for theirs. His was a life spent at the beck and call of others. And he hated it.

But he never quit. And he never went out on his own.

He kept track of his bosses’ millions in plump portfolios but never invested or dallied in the stock market. He was given a shot at some uranium profits once but it was a flash in the pan. They owned just one home in their lives, but rented mostly. .

After their honey moon cruise to Alaska, their travel consisted of trips to Catalina and Balboa Islands in Southern California where they spent most of their lives. Late in their lives they went to Hawaii, once.

They died as they lived: free of debt and in the care of family, not the state.

A funny thing about autumn in Napa Valley, it s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-s all the way through Thanksgiving.
And that makes November an absolutely magic month to be here.

November is that month after crush when Napans take time to enjoy their valley themselves. The crowds of high season are gone leaving behind a paradise at peace. And while locals are catching their collective breath, you can share their little corner of heaven for a devilishly good price. It’s the best of all worlds: high season weather at low season prices, generally $20 to $40 off per night.

Gone are the crowds of high season, but here for another four weeks is high season WEATHER.
And this includes dazzling fall colors.

Napa is known as a tree-lover’s town. There are more varieties of brilliant hardwood trees than nearly any other Northern California town. This translates into a fall foliage fanfare you might have expected in New England.

This isn’t too surprising considering how many New Englanders settled in Napa Valley in the early 1800’s. They brought their tastes in architecture as well as landscaping. We are left with a visual inheritance of streets lined with Maples, Liquid Ambers, Elms, and Chinese Pistachios framing one of the largest collections of Victorians this side of San Francisco.

Then there are the vineyards with their bright yellows, oranges and even reds.

The mornings are as crisp as a Napa Valley fume blanc and the afternoons warm and welcoming as a hug.
Evenings come early and even our best restaurants have openings. You’ll see vintners celebrating their bountiful harvests and chefs mingling with local patrons.

And the cool evenings are just made for cuddling before your fireplace or soaking in your own in-room whirlpool tub. And as you snuggle under a down comforter, on our supple soft sheets yours will be the dreams of Angels as you drift off under the radar of your cares.

Back in July, after many weeks of heavy lifting we FINALLY converted our Guest Management Software from the old program to a new, faster, mo’ better new one.

This new program promised to make our lives simpler, our skin softer and tracking of our guests easier.

Our lives were not transformed, in a good way. And while the new skin on our knees and hands MAY be softer after the many falls, it still hurts. And keeping track of guests is no better.

In FACT our shinny new software helped us make one of the only DOUBLE BOOKINGS we have suffered in 28 years. I say “suffered” because, dear reader, we really DO suffer when we screw up and disappoint our guests. And it was costly. And not in just $$$ and cents.

A learning curve comes with any new system. And “pilot error” is a fact of life. There are also idiosyncrasies of sophisticated software that aren’t obvious until you have stumbled upon them.

And some of them go “boom.”

This happened when we were moving reservations from the old to the new program.

A reservation was entered, it was then changed by the guests from one night to two and the innkeeper duly did that and sent the confirmation. Unfortunately we didn’t hit “save” before leaving the entry. So the guests got their confirmation (for 2 nights) but the program reverted back to the ONE night stay.

Later we sold that “new second night” to SOMEONE ELSE.

And, it gets worse, we didn’t discover this until late on the night before the new guests were about to arrive: a Friday night, in HIGH season. Bad, very bad. And they were scheduled for two nights.

The guest was understandably pissed. We were frustrated. He was from New York. It was going to be a “big weekend”. We had ruined it.

We ended up finding him a room in a hotel three blocks away and, taking responsibility, paid for his room. It was clear he was still mad when he checked in on Saturday. He could barely look at me and didn’t shake hands.

Any hope of him forgiving and forgetting was dashed the morning he checked out when the only other guests who were leaving early took THEIR “Brown Bag Breakfast” AS WELL AS THEIR OWN. We discovered this later when “the other” guests sheepishly called from the airport reporting their mistake.

By now our credibility was zilch. “Mr. Happy” went away thinking we had purposely sabotaged his weekend and we wondered if that job posting for “landmine removal” in Darfur might still be open.

And, oh yes, the guest posted two negative reviews on line.

They say bad things come in threes.