West Side Wine

I see a lot of wine salespeople in my shop, and they’re all a lot younger than me.  That doesn’t bother me because, frankly, I don’t spend that much time thinking about how old I am.  It never meant much to me.  But today I drew the line.  The first guy comes in, we taste some wine, and he asks me if he can come back in a few days to taste me on a number of wines made by a guy named Fess Parker.  Now, for you youngsters out there, Fess Parker in his former life was a famous actor. We’re talking the 50′s.  He played a chararcter named Davey Crockett on TV, and was extremely popular. As kids, we all had a replica of his coonskin hat and wore it whenever the show came on.  Lame?  Maybe in hindsight. But hell, we were kids. 

So this guys proceeds to tell me that the number of people who recognize Fess Parker’s name is “rapidly diminishing.” “Excuse me?” I respond.  “Not only do I know who he is, but I still have a pulse.” 

“Well, you know what I mean,”,he says. 

“No, not really,” I reply, having some fun watching him squirm and dig himself a deeper hole.

So, right after he leaves another young turk comes in with some wines, one of which was really quite good.  I ask him to give me some background on it.

“It’s a very lovely, quaint story,” he says. “An older couple, you know in their early 60′s, decided to change their lives and become winemakers.”  Wham!  Another assault on the “old folks”.   I told him the Davey Crockett story and informed him that “quaint” wasn’t a word that should be used in referring to folks in that age group.  To his credit, he and I  just cracked up at the juxtaposition of the two incidents, and I’m going to buy the lovely quaint wine anyway.  I will enjoy it on my rocking chair.