In the compact back seat of his silver Porsche were apples, apple doughnuts, walnuts, roasted pecans, mission figs, yellow squash -- all from Wine Country roadside stands -- and bottles of wine from every winery they visited. Instead of driving back home, they had reservations at a small inn, where dinner and breakfast would be served; where hillside vineyards would be visible out their bedroom window.
"It was not an uncommon story during World War II", Griff remarked, "when men departed for battlefieds. leaving unexpectedly pregnant women behind. Not uncommon after team road trips either. I remember the time when…", Griff paused, not sure of which story of which teammate to tell. "When was Ted's baby born?" he asked.
"Susanna lived at the family winery in an isolated area of of farmland and vineyards. It was wartime; her family was supportive. Glen was born in September of 1944; raised in a Gold Country winery. She never told Ted. It was not something that would be easy to write in a letter, and correspondence between her and Ted had ceased abruptly in the secrecy of D-Day preparation. She did not know if he was still alive or lying in some hospital badly wounded. All that she knew was that he never came home."
Late afternoon sun was reflected in the vineyards on Mumm Napa.The champagne was memorable. "Glen went to Cal. A few years later, he and his young wife opened a small cafe that served pate, cheese, bread warm from the oven, soups, salads, and wine from Gold Country vineyards - not just from the family vineyards, but also from the neighboring wineries that had welcomed him when he was a child. As far as he knew, his Father had died on a World War II battlefield.
"But he knew what Ted looked like from the picture that Ted's Grandfather had taken of Ted and Susannah together".