Part III – The Barn, the Farm and New Jersey Cowboys
Chapter 8: New Jersey Cowboys
Captain America: We also set our sights on the old pole barn in the middle of the property. In 2004, it was still just a barn – dirt floor, holes in the roof, big sliding doors on either side, and the south side completely open to serve as horse stalls and on the far side, a huge bull pen. At that time we rented out the horse stalls and the pasture behind it to a New Jersey Cowboy named Clay. Up to that point I had not known that there was such a thing as a New Jersey Cowboy. But, sure enough, there was. He had a big white cowboy hat, chewed tobacco at 7 am, wore boots and spurs and the whole deal. Clay was in the business of buying wild horses, breaking them and making them safe to ride and then selling them. He asked if he could rent the pasture and the stalls for a while and, loving the idea of having horses on the farm and being fascinated with the idea of the very existence of New Jersey Cowboys, I readily agreed. Plus there was an added benefit – Clay was a rodeo cowboy. He performed with all sorts of other cowboys, the New Jersey variety and otherwise, at Cowtown Rodeo every Saturday evening in the summer. If you have never been, you MUST go to Cowtown. It is truly an amazing place. It was especially so for a city boy like me. But what was great was that we took the boys to the rodeo one Saturday and there was Clay standing inside the ring along the fence, waiting his turn. We walked through the crowd down to the fence and said hello and talked to him for a few minutes. We were at the rodeo and we knew one of the cowboys! Not only did we go to the rodeo, but we got to be cool at the rodeo!
Clay kept horses at the farm throughout the summer and I don’t remember actually collecting any rent, but that didn’t matter. It was still cool. And besides, he did leave me a goat tied to a tree for a present once. I wasn’t sure it was a goat at the time. But I called Ross and described this thing tied to the tree and Ross assured me that it was in fact a goat and that, no, goats were not dangerous but were actually very smart animals and good for cleaning up weedy places.
Well, we had a lot of those so I put Goaty (which is the name Luca gave him) to work. After a week or so, I told Clay, thanks but no thanks. We had way too much on our hands without becoming goat herders as well. Clay seemed disappointed. So was Luca.
Showing posts with label New Jersey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Jersey. Show all posts
Monday, June 8, 2009
Jen and Joe join the Band and we begin to get serious
Chapter 4: Jen and Joe join the Band and we begin to get serious…
Captain America: Little by little, our wives were coming around. I guess they figured that if Dave and I had to have an obsession, this at least appeared to be a healthy one. As we had lost one partner in crime, Dave suggested that he saw in Jen’s boyfriend, Joe, a little of the same mania that we possessed. Before long, Jen and Joe joined us. It was about this time that Dave suggested that Aquila Verde sounds like an aftershave and that, since our little vineyard in Dave’s yard was on Auburn Road, we should change the name to Auburn Road Vineyards. I thought it sounded cool and so we went with it.
Then, in the winter of 2002, my dad, Luigi, passed away suddenly. It was pretty awful as I guess it always is when you lose a parent. He came from immigrant parents and became a CPA and made himself out of pretty much nothing. He worked hard, long hours in a corporate world more or less the same as the one Dave and I were now in. He died too young and there is not too much dispute that the work, the stress and the lifestyle that it created pretty much killed him. I think about him a lot when I’m on the farm. He had been living in the city the last few years of his life, but he always talked about buying a house with a few acres of land in Jersey. I told him he was nuts, why would he want that headache? His response was that he wanted to be able to pee on the grass. I tried to get the words “voglio piciare nel erba” (Italian for “I want to pee in the grass”) placed on our first wine label but the TTB wouldn’t let us. I’m not sure my dad would have ever done what we have done here. But I know he’d love this place.
Anyhow, it turned out that my dad left me a little money. I remember talking with Dave about whether we could really make a go of this, because if we thought we could, we could take what my dad left me and start looking for land to grow grapes on. Next thing we knew we were looking for land.
Captain America: Little by little, our wives were coming around. I guess they figured that if Dave and I had to have an obsession, this at least appeared to be a healthy one. As we had lost one partner in crime, Dave suggested that he saw in Jen’s boyfriend, Joe, a little of the same mania that we possessed. Before long, Jen and Joe joined us. It was about this time that Dave suggested that Aquila Verde sounds like an aftershave and that, since our little vineyard in Dave’s yard was on Auburn Road, we should change the name to Auburn Road Vineyards. I thought it sounded cool and so we went with it.
Then, in the winter of 2002, my dad, Luigi, passed away suddenly. It was pretty awful as I guess it always is when you lose a parent. He came from immigrant parents and became a CPA and made himself out of pretty much nothing. He worked hard, long hours in a corporate world more or less the same as the one Dave and I were now in. He died too young and there is not too much dispute that the work, the stress and the lifestyle that it created pretty much killed him. I think about him a lot when I’m on the farm. He had been living in the city the last few years of his life, but he always talked about buying a house with a few acres of land in Jersey. I told him he was nuts, why would he want that headache? His response was that he wanted to be able to pee on the grass. I tried to get the words “voglio piciare nel erba” (Italian for “I want to pee in the grass”) placed on our first wine label but the TTB wouldn’t let us. I’m not sure my dad would have ever done what we have done here. But I know he’d love this place.
Anyhow, it turned out that my dad left me a little money. I remember talking with Dave about whether we could really make a go of this, because if we thought we could, we could take what my dad left me and start looking for land to grow grapes on. Next thing we knew we were looking for land.
Chapter 2: The Beginnings of an Idea
Chapter 2: The Beginnings of an Idea…
Captain America: I eventually left Fiserv only to return a few years later, in 2000, this time as General Counsel. Dave had long since left to join J.P. Morgan. Shannon and Jen were still there. Dave and Shannon got married and Jules and I had our first son, Luca. We were all making that transition from young, struggling graduates to somewhat established thirty-something professionals with families. We were all office workers of various varieties. Jules, by this time, had set aside the practice of law for a time to focus on our young son. In April of 2000, you might remember the tech bubble bursting and the problems that caused in the stock market . It was not a fun time to be in the securities business. The hours were long. Paper multi-millionaires were suddenly millions of dollars in debt to our firm (thanks to borrowing on margin) and their debt was our risk to manage. Before long, I started to realize that the stresses of the work I was doing and the responsibilities of a young family were beginning to get to me.
One afternoon, Jules and I went to visit our buddy Rob and his wife who had just had a daughter. Dave and Shannon were going to be there too. We were all going to visit and “see the baby”. Jules and Shannon were in the living room with Rob’s wife “seeing the baby”. All babies look the same to me, so Dave, Rob and I were sitting in the dining room, drinking a bottle of wine like it was the last one remaining on earth and talking about our respective jobs. We quickly agreed that we needed a change in our lives. We also, almost as quickly, realized that we were not qualified, at this stage of our lives, to really do anything other than what we were presently doing. That, however, actually proved to be a pretty liberating realization. If we are qualified to do nothing else, then there are no limits – we would have the whole wide world of things we are not qualified to do to choose from. Once we choose something, all that would remain would be to become qualified to do it. Drinking wine truly does inspire genius...
I believe I was the one that held up the bottle we were drinking and suggested we start a winery. We decided on the spot that it was a great idea. We spent the rest of the afternoon planning. We even gave it a name - “Aquila Verde” - which is Italian for “Green Eagle”, all of us being devout fans of the Philadelphia pro football team. Being as Dave and Shannon had just bought a house in Woolwich Twp., New Jersey, Dave volunteered to turn under part of his two acre lawn so that we could plant a test plot of grape vines. He was tired of cutting so much lawn anyway. Do grapes grow in New Jersey? Beats us. It is the Garden State right? So why not?
Captain America: I eventually left Fiserv only to return a few years later, in 2000, this time as General Counsel. Dave had long since left to join J.P. Morgan. Shannon and Jen were still there. Dave and Shannon got married and Jules and I had our first son, Luca. We were all making that transition from young, struggling graduates to somewhat established thirty-something professionals with families. We were all office workers of various varieties. Jules, by this time, had set aside the practice of law for a time to focus on our young son. In April of 2000, you might remember the tech bubble bursting and the problems that caused in the stock market . It was not a fun time to be in the securities business. The hours were long. Paper multi-millionaires were suddenly millions of dollars in debt to our firm (thanks to borrowing on margin) and their debt was our risk to manage. Before long, I started to realize that the stresses of the work I was doing and the responsibilities of a young family were beginning to get to me.
One afternoon, Jules and I went to visit our buddy Rob and his wife who had just had a daughter. Dave and Shannon were going to be there too. We were all going to visit and “see the baby”. Jules and Shannon were in the living room with Rob’s wife “seeing the baby”. All babies look the same to me, so Dave, Rob and I were sitting in the dining room, drinking a bottle of wine like it was the last one remaining on earth and talking about our respective jobs. We quickly agreed that we needed a change in our lives. We also, almost as quickly, realized that we were not qualified, at this stage of our lives, to really do anything other than what we were presently doing. That, however, actually proved to be a pretty liberating realization. If we are qualified to do nothing else, then there are no limits – we would have the whole wide world of things we are not qualified to do to choose from. Once we choose something, all that would remain would be to become qualified to do it. Drinking wine truly does inspire genius...
I believe I was the one that held up the bottle we were drinking and suggested we start a winery. We decided on the spot that it was a great idea. We spent the rest of the afternoon planning. We even gave it a name - “Aquila Verde” - which is Italian for “Green Eagle”, all of us being devout fans of the Philadelphia pro football team. Being as Dave and Shannon had just bought a house in Woolwich Twp., New Jersey, Dave volunteered to turn under part of his two acre lawn so that we could plant a test plot of grape vines. He was tired of cutting so much lawn anyway. Do grapes grow in New Jersey? Beats us. It is the Garden State right? So why not?
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