Oak Trees and Vineyards, Part 1: A Family Story

OAK TREES &
VINEYARDS 1:
A FAMILY STORY:
THE HARDEST LESSON

ANDY ODDSTAD
1918 to 1964
This series of articles is dedicated to my father.
He's shown here in the early 1960's, doing something he loved: waterskiing in the Redwood City, CA, harbor.
This photo is irreplaceable: the San Francisco Bay is now too polluted for water-skiing and my father is dead.
He was 45 years old when he died.

PART ONE: A FAMILY STORY My point of view writing about oaks and vineyards.
PART TWO: OAK TREES: MAGIC OR WEEDS? Focuses on California oaks and my life with them. This section outlines the challenges faced by California oaks today.
PART THREE: PROTECTING THE OAKS UNDER CONSTRUCTION-- Photos still up for your enjoyment.
PART FOUR: LESSONS IN ECONOMICS UNDER CONSTRUCTION-- Photos still up for your enjoyment.
PART FIVE: AFTER THE STORM Are oaks safe now? UNDER CONSTRUCTION -- Photos still up for your enjoyment.

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OUR FAMILY BACK IN 1955

I want to tell you a story. As the story unfolds, you'll see how my attitudes about oak trees and vineyards evolved. I'm not an activist. I'm not a rabble rouser. I'm not someone who wants to impose government programs on people, keep them from using their own property, or who thinks it's a sin to make a buck. I'd like to tell you the story of my family and myself.

My father, Andres Fjeldsted Oddstad, was born in British Columbia, Canada, in 1918. His family was of Icelandic stock. "Fish heads" they called them. During the early part of this century, Iceland was as rough a place be poor as exists. Although their ties to the old country remained strong, my father's family was glad they migrated in Canada. My grandfather tried his hand at ranching, farming and managing a fish cannery. Times were rough: The family of seven moved to San Francisco, California, where my grandmother had brothers who were builders: Henry and Ellis Stoneson. You may have heard of Stonestown, in San Francisco. My father's family arrived in the City just in time for the Great Depression.

My father started work sweeping out his uncles' jobs when he was ten years old. He was a journeyman carpenter when he was 17. He wasn't much to look at: A scrawny little mutt with buck teeth and blond hair, a 140 pound weakling. No one expected much from him -- except himself. He took up weight lifting, wrestling and football, transforming himself into a star athlete. He was an honor student from day one. After working his way through U.C. Berkeley in civil engineering as a carpenter, he took a government engineering job. He met my mother in Los Angeles. Love at first sight.

ANDY & CLARA ODDSTAD IN 1962
Still in love, 22 years later.

They wed, just in time for my dad to ship out with the Navy: World War II called. Andy Oddstad was a member of the first underwater demolition team. He was a "frogman" and went on over 20 landings, clearing mines in occupied waters so the Marines could land. He was a decorated war hero, written up in Francis Fane's classic The Naked Warriors, The Story of the U.S. Navy's Frogmen. Once he returned home from the war, my father molded himself into a captain of industry. He founded a residential construction company using my mother's small wartime savings. He built the first houses himself. My dad told me the saddest day of his life was the day the business got so big he had to hang up his carpenter's belt: he remained a AFL-CIO carpenters' union member for years.

By the 1960's, Oddstad Homes had grown into one of the largest residential construction companies in the United States, by far the largest in Northern California. My father didn't rest with that: he remained an athlete, winning the heavyweight AAU championship in wrestling when he was 40 years old. He supported the U.S. Olympic wrestling team, helped Hungarian wrestlers settle in the U.S. after the revolution attempt in the '50's, built a clubhouse so neighborhood kids in Redwood City could learn martial arts-- and taught there. He built several churches at cost, and was active in the Boy Scouts. My father lived the American dream: he was an inspiration.

GUS KERHULAS & MY BROTHER, DAVID, IN '56 or so.
Anyone from the Greek community in San Francisco out there?
Old timers remember Dr. Gus Kerhulas. An eminent surgeon, "Uncle Gus" was one of my father's best friends and my brother's godfather.

One morning in January of 1964, my dad left our home near San Francisco early in the morning. He drove to Fresno for a Boy Scout health conference. He reached his destination in plenty of time, pulling off the freeway about 10 AM. A big truck was in front of him on the off ramp. He couldn't see the befuddled old man driving at the truck. The old guy got confused and pulled onto the off ramp, going the wrong way. The truck driver was able to swerve to avoid a head-on collision. My father was not. The old man was killed instantly. My father took three agonizing days to die, my mother by his side.

Why did the old fellow get so confused? The almost-consumed bottle of wine of the seat next to him explained it pretty well. All my dad's disciplined living, all his working out, and everything he had accomplished in life didn't matter when a powerful machine piloted by a wine-soaked brain plowed into him.

The trauma of my father's death cannot be communicated in words. What happened that morning has affected my mother, brother and myself to this day. Our economic and social status was impacted irretrievably. The pain of losing someone like that lasts far, far longer than the sympathy cards. As time passed, the world forgot him and moved on.

BOYS NEED ROLE MODELS
Loss of a family member impacts many generations.
My father is shown here with my brother and cousin Paul about the time he died.

My life changed and changed again. Many lessons came to me as years passed. I saw people who were decent and civilized while sober turn into vicious monsters when drunk. I saw children subjected to unspeakable things. I saw that alcohol is a dangerous, addictive drug and that denial really is the primary symptom of disease.

Despite that, I've been very fortunate. My life has taken me to some of the most beautiful neighborhoods and homes in the world, and to some of the finest clubs. One thing I could not ignore is that alcohol abuse and alcoholism is not restricted to the 'hood or to the Rez. To "those people." Alcohol abuse pervades our society, from top to bottom. It shows up in country clubs and board rooms, on the golf course and by the horse show arena. You'll see it in the best homes and at the most elegant parties. The difference is-- in such exalted circles, alcohol dependency is well dressed, stylish, and speaks proper English. At least initially.

I found that peer pressure to do drugs isn't a matter of gang members forcing anyone to do anything. Not at all. If certain types of behavior are condoned by a group, those wishing to belong will walk through the doors gladly. I certainly did. One way to belong was to drink along with the social leaders. I walked that path for quite a while. Our drink of choice was wine. Fine wines, usually. You see, these are not alcoholic, in the same way that chocolate chip cookies eaten while standing have no calories. Drinking wine does not really qualify as drinking. I imbibed for years: I'm sure some of you have seen me at parties. The problem with my approach to social fulfillment was threefold: One, I discovered I didn't have the same values of the people I was drinking with. Two, they didn't like me any more when I was drinking than when I was sober. Three, I didn't like myself.

As time went by, I noticed something happening. My harmless social drinking was stealing my soul, draining away who I was. Something malignant grew in the void, something which would eventually destroy me. I thought about the stupidity of my dad's death. I went to graduate school in counseling and heard how alcohol damages the body. How easy it is to become addicted. My doctor said the same. I saw more of the behavior of alcoholics. Finally, I said, "Enough. I've had enough." I stopped drinking several years ago and haven't missed it. I never was an alcoholic. I was totally indistinguishable from the many "social drinkers" around me. But I knew where I was headed-- I came out of denial, something that many of my old pals haven't.

When I write about alcohol and what it does, I'm not writing from a holier-than-thou position. "You drink and I don't. I'm better than you." I'm writing because I know exactly what the drug does from my own experience, from the inner world to the outer, at a level deeper and more intense than most.

My family did not move to Santa Barbara County to become embroiled in the oaks vs. vineyards issue. We came for the climate, the sun, the beauty of the Santa Ynez Valley and the great horse property we found. Little did we knew that we were walking into a maelstrom that would transform the Valley into a wine-powered tourist Mecca like Napa and Sonoma.

When the events that are chronicled below began to unfold, I was horrified. Still, I wasn't an activist.

One afternoon, my elderly mother was being driven to the hospital to visit my niece. She and her friend drove through a pleasant, upscale neighborhood in broad daylight. A drunk ran into them, totaling the big car they were driving.

THAT'S when I became an activist.

"Will I lose both parents to this society's acceptable addiction?" I thought. "The last legal drug," Jack Nicholson called alcohol in "As Good As It Gets."

I probably would have dawdled longer, and maybe not put this on the net, but for another thing. Last Friday, we received a letter from a neighbor. Something happened in our neighborhood. I write about it in "Drugs, Sex and Rock'n'Roll," . If you live in wine country anywhere, this could happen to you.

I hope that you will be moved by reading what I've produced. If you're a Santa Barbara County resident, I hope you will be moved to speak up and urge your political representatives to protect people and the environment. Perhaps you will be moved to look at your own drinking behavior. I hope that my readers drive more carefully. Designate a non-drinking driver. "The life you save may be your own", as they say. Or your child's. Or mine.

Every day is a gift. Everything can be ripped away in the blink of an eye. I fear that more people will learn the lessons I have as the wineries of Santa Barbara County gear up and open those tasting rooms. And as their produce floods the world markets.

FOR INFORMATION & PERSONAL ASSISTANCE CONTACT:
M. A. D. D.: MOTHER'S AGAINST DRUNK DRIVING
ANTI- ADDICTION SELF HELP RESOURCES

HERE'S A FAMILY PHOTO ALBUM FOR YOU OLD SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA FOLK:

MOM & I BACK IN THE 50'S
Clara Oddstad passed on July 2, 2000.
No movie star was more beautiful than my mother in her prime.
I liked her best when she was older: rounder and soft. This wasn't bad, either.

ANDY ODDSTAD & TRIFF TRIFELETTI
Movers and shakers from the 50's and 60's. Dad and Triff were great friends, worked together for many years.
They don't make'em like this any more. After my dad died, Triff, Gordon Hanson & John O'Malley went on with Challenge Homes.

ANY WRAS'LERS OUT THERE?
Ray Stern was (is?) a professional wras'ler and a pretty darn good wrestler, too.
He and my dad used to wrestle together the Olympic Club in San Francisco, where my father was Commissioner of Wrestling.
Good times back then- great characters like this as family friends.
This photo has a funny caption in my dad's handwriting in our family scrap book: "Ray finally floats." Ray Stern was a block of solid muscle:
muscle is heavy- it doesn't float. The guys had the worst time trying to teach Ray to ski: he'd sink. A full body wet suit with hood did the trick!
Ray and his wife, Clare, had health studios in the Bay Area.
My dad said Ray didn't let Clare work out on "men's days" at their gyms because she could press more than most guys.
That wouldn't fly in these liberated days: let lift who can!

THINK ABOUT IT BEFORE YOU DRINK AND DRIVE.

FOR INFORMATION & ASSISTANCE CONTACT:
M. A. D. D.
MOTHER'S AGAINST DRUNK DRIVING

AUTHOR SANDY NATHAN IS THE WINNER OF EIGHT NATIONAL AWARDS!

SANDY NATHAN
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IT'S OUT! New from SANDY NATHAN!
Sandy Nathan's NEW book NUMENON has WON TWO NATIONAL AWARDS before publication!

Click here to hear Sandy speak on Fascinating Authors.

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