Jasonic

It was his very first race, he was six years old and he was the first horse that Jim and I raced together with our own stable. Jim went to the Vallejo Fairgrounds racetrack early the morning of the race to be with Jasonic. I arrived in the early afternoon with our new friend named Bob, who lived in Calistoga and liked to bet on the races.  Jim’s brother Bob and Bob’s girlfriend Darlene arrived at the track a bit later in the day in their motor home. Bob had lung cancer and had lost all of his hair from chemotherapy, but he and Darlene were there to support us. 

Jasonic was a big strapping horse, about 17.1 hands. Jim’s friends Carl and Mickie Pitti from Hemet had given him to us a couple of years before, after my mother had taken all of her horses off the ranch and we were left without any other horses than my riding horse, Zacker.  Jasonic was in the last race of the day. The second to the last race is generally the biggest race of the day. After that one, most people start packing up and going home. The stands were emptying out as Jasonic was brought to the paddock.  

When Jasonic was already in the paddock  preparing to be saddled, Jim’s appointed jockey informed him  that he had a stomach ache and wouldn’t ride the horse. In desperation Jim ran into the Jock’s room (The Jockeys dressing room) and looked for another rider. The other jockeys who were not riding in that race were changing and getting ready to leave the track. But one rider, J.C. Martinez jumped at the opportunity to ride any horse he could and took the mount. Jim told the jockey to break him very alert and do what ever he could, “see what he’s got.” When the gate opened up, Jasonic roared to the front; another horse challenged him on the outside for the lead halfway down the back stretch. J.C. slapped him on the shoulder and he kept the lead and opened up by a length and a half in the stretch. 

As we were all standing near the finish line and screaming “go Jasonic go” he maintained the lead and finished first. The five of us were jumping up and down and screaming so loud we must have been a sight to behold. He paid $20 on a two dollar ticket and we were all winners that day. After we posed for the win picture, cashed in our tickets, and waited for Jasonic to be drug tested and cooled down, we drove back to Napa Valley and went to the Rutherford Grill to celebrate. 

The staff put us at the large table near the window where you can see their famous roasted chicken cooking on a spit. We were all giddy from our exciting win and ordered the most extravagant dishes on the menu. 

The general manager of the restaurant apparently liked our high energy and when the time came for the bill, he told us it was on the house. 

Darlene and Bob second and third from the left, Susan, other Bob, Jim

Someone else who got lucky at the track that day

Bob's trip to SoCal

After he had been at the ranch six months, Jim let Bob take my Dad’s old Oldsmobile station wagon with the wood side panels down to LA to bring up the rest of his personal belongings; Bob had decided to make RustRidge his home.

When Bob returned a few days later at around 10 pm, Jim and I were already in bed. We could hear him walking up and down the stairs bringing his items from the car. When he continued to bring his stuff in after midnight, Jim knew that Bob was high. Bob never slept that night. The next morning, every time I looked out the window I saw Bob on a different piece of equipment, first the lawn mower then the tractor, his energy level was off the charts. Later that evening we all had dinner together then Bob settled on the couch and fell asleep with boots and jacket on. The next morning we found him in the exact same position. Jim said to just leave him there. He slept there the whole day.

That evening Jim confronted Bob in my presence about getting high while he was in LA.  Bob denied it over and over again, but Jim persisted. I was very uncomfortable with this interrogation but Jim insisted that I stay and listen. Jim didn’t want to keep any secrets from me. Finally after what seemed like hours, Bob finally admitted what he had done. 

Bob had been sent to San Quentin for dealing marijuana in the sixties.  After he had been released on parole, he found himself back in jail on numerous occasions for parole violations for “using.” (Having heroin in his system) 

Besides the fact that Jim knew that Bob would be an asset to the ranch, he also knew that if he didn’t leave LA he wouldn’t survive because of his heroin habit. I didn’t understand all of this at the time, but it explained Bob’s amazing physical transformation from the first days of arrival.  Bob never went back to LA and he lived his remaining years in Northern California heroin free.

Bob Fresquez, Jim's brother

1990-Bob Settles in

Bob settles in

Bob was very engaging but his social skills needed refining.  Having spent so much time in prison he really didn’t know how to communicate with guests in the beginning.  I saw him corner guests and tell them about his three ex-wives. I think that was his way of trying to relate to the guests. In those early days, we were learning  how to run the Bed and Breakfast and Bob was trying to figure out his role.  As he felt more comfortable with himself he would sit on the front porch of the Bed and Breakfast, smoke a cigarette and chat with the guests. As Bob started talking about the vineyard and other things related to the ranch, his personal transformation began. Bob was an early riser, he was out at the shed at 6:30 in the morning on the darkest of days. He quit around 3:30-4 pm.  It was very hard to get him to do anything after that. It had to be an emergency.  However, he might be too drunk in that case to help. Since Bob was a gregarious guy, it didn’t take him long to find the nearest bar about 5 miles away.  He became a  fixture there every day right after work. 

Puppies
In June, my mother presented me with two bundles of joy, two yellow Labrador puppies, a brother and sister.  I tried to care for them, but with everything else I was trying to do that summer, it just wasn’t working.  I would take them for a hurried walk in the vineyard before making breakfast for my guests and they would trip me. Then, while I was making breakfast, they would dig up my newly planted garden.  I didn’t have the time or patience for them. Eventually, Bob began taking them with him.  However, two underfoot puppies prevented him from doing the jobs he need to do and we made the decision to give my mother back the female, whom we had named Astrid. My Mother renamed her Tasha. 

Bo, the remaining male puppy, stayed with Bob all day long and they went on many adventures together. When Bo got a parvo type illness, Bob didn’t realize the seriousness of the condition and Jim and I had to rush him  to the vet hospital.  He was on an I.V. for a week. Each of us took trips down to visit our precious puppy at Silverado Vet Hospital. Thankfully, Bo recovered completely. From then on, Bo and Bob were inseparable. Bo didn’t have time to socialize  with the rest of us because he had work to do with Bob.  Bob shared everything with him. When Bo reciprocated by sharing his ticks, Bob made him sleep on the floor. 

Harvest

The harvest of 1990 was Bob’s indoctrination into winemaking. Besides crushing Chardonnay, Riesling, Zinfandel and Cabernet Sauvignon, we made a small lot of late harvest Sauvignon Blanc that oxidized in the tank.  Georgie, our first winemaker, said it was no good and we needed to dump it.  When Bob heard this, he was alarmed.  How could we throw away this high octane fuel which tasted just fine to him.  Against my better judgment I let Bob take the wine and put it into 50 gallon containers in the side barn.  That wine became legendary.  It was used for barter with the raucous county road crew that Bob befriended. It was shared with guests who found their way into Bob’s lair. It was tasted by drop-in wine tasters that Bob diverted from the winery to try his stuff, which he claimed was better than the commercial stuff we were selling. 

Our first Winter
In December of 1990  I saw what we truly had in Bob. We experienced the coldest winter on record in California.  For three days it did not get above 30 degrees during the day and went down to about 4 degrees during the night and we lost power and this all happened over the Christmas holiday. For  those three days the ice didn’t thaw, so the water pipes were frozen and we had no access to water. Jim, Bob and I were living frugally and we were very resourceful. Bob cut us a manzanita branch to use as a Christmas tree, and we expected to have a very quiet and uneventful holiday. But we were not prepared for the cold. The cold snap we had in 1990 was devastating to our infrastructure because it was so abnormal we could not have planned for it.  Initially when the cold set in we lost our electricity, but that was quickly restored. But without water we couldn’t flush toilets, we couldn’t clean up and cooking was out of the question. The first night of the bitter cold was December 24. Luckily, Georgie our winemaker had invited us to her home in American Canyon for a formal Christmas dinner. We spent the night there and were able to stay somewhat warm, although it was cold everywhere. The next morning we went back to the ranch and took care of the immediate crises. The swimming pool had a thick layer of ice on it which I broke up with a pole. Watering the horses was our biggest project. We had to pump water directly out of the well into the 300 gallon water tanker which we wheeled around to the 30 thirst starved horses. They were banging the aluminum fences and going wild. When we filled our picking bins with the water they sucked it up and kept drinking. But we could only feed one corral of horses at a time so the anxiety level was very high among the herd.

That night was Christmas, and Jim and I stayed at the old Mt. View hotel in Calistoga. It was kind of sad to be at that stark place at Christmas. Our room was very simple with no television. We ate dinner at the Cinnabar Restaurant across the street from the hotel with a few others who must have been in similar circumstances because it didn't feel festive. The next morning we were back at the ranch for another bitter cold day of feeding and watering horses and damage control. That night we stayed at The Chateau in Napa. It was really warm there and we watched movies all evening. By the third day, December 27, the weather warmed up enough to thaw the pipes so we could have water again. We were able to move home.

Due to the extreme cold, the copper pipes in the winery split creating leaks throughout the building. We were unable to replace these pipes because there was a shortage of materials at all of the hardware stores throughout northern California and the wait was two to three weeks. However, we had Bob and he systematically repaired every broken pipe, by crawling on his back in narrow spaces and welding each pipe back together. His talents held us together that very difficult year.

Having never run a bed and breakfast before, we learned quite a lot that first year. One thing we learned was the guests wanted to be able to lock their doors when they left their rooms. They could lock their rooms from the inside, but that wasn’t sufficient. So, we had Bob add locks to all of the doors. I thought it must be a fairly easy job because he zipped through it in half a day and had put deadbolt locks on every bedroom door. Later, after Bob was gone, I needed additional locks added and I found out that it wasn’t such a simple job and it was very expensive to have a locksmith come out to do it. Sadly, I did not fully appreciate Bob’s talents until I had to hire someone else do the same projects.