We returned to the Southwest corner this afternoon. We just had four wonderful days of Peace in the Valley.
No, it wasn’t the peace in the valley in the religious song written by Thomas Dorsey made immensely popular by Elvis, but originally sung and sung better by Mahalia Jackson. It was our peace and the valley was Sonoma’s. Regardless, it provided us with peace in the valley.
The primary reason was our stay was at Alan and Maren Hick’s home adjacent to the Sebastiani vinyards. The Hicks homestead is about as peaceful as you can get. Alan, Maren, and i have been friends since we were at Vanderbilt together 62-64. The friendship has never waned even though my Navy career and Alan’s shipping career primarily with Pacific Container Lines took us far away for years.
When Maureen met Maren at a Vandy reunion in 2006, it was a instant friendship. Their likes and interests are an amazing match.
Our ventures from peace in the valley were intriguing. Alan and Maren are very good at allowing us to learn.
On Thursday, we walked through the past. Alan drove us to Mare Island. The US Navy’s first presence on the West Coast was on Mare Island in 1849. The first permanent Navy dry dock on the West Coast was completed in 1891. It was made of granite, not concrete.
Many buildings dating back to the 1800s are still standing. The area has been declared a National Historic Landmark. Several of the huge cranes for dry dock and ship maintenance services, no longer in use, stand as if they were ready to roll again, sentinels looking out on the past. Mansions, formerly the residences of Naval officers, stand majestically and serve many purposes. In the middle of it all is the Navy chapel, the first interdenominational chapel in the Navy. It has Tiffany created stained windows and is a beautiful and stately evidence of the past. As we drove past the old Navy cemetery and then walked up the hills to a promontory where the base golf course once sprawled, now only imagined on the open spaces where there were once fairways.
As we walked, i commented to Alan that the experience was beautifully eerie. After all, one of its first commanders was Commander David Farragut in the 1850s, of the later civil war quote “Damn the torpedoes” .
The other travels out of peace in the valley were equally intriguing.
It was a great weekend. The Hicks, as usual, gave us respite from our daily dallying in the Southwest corner. Thank you, Alan and Maren.
i close with the lyrics of “Peace in the Valley.” For me, they seem to fit:
Oh well, I’m tired and so weary,
But I must go along,
‘Til the Lord comes and calls
Calls me away, oh, yes;
Well, the morn-ing is bright,
And the Lamb the Light,
And the night, Night is as fair
as the day, oh, yes.
There will be peace in the valley for me, some day;
There will be peace in the valley for me, oh Lord I pray;
There’ll be no sadness, no sorrow,
No trouble, trouble I see;
There will be peace in the valley for me.There the flow’rs will be blooming,
and the grass will be green,
And the skies will be clear
and serene, oh, Yes;
Well the sun ever beams,
in this valley of dreams,
And no clouds there will ever
be seen, oh, yes.
There will be peace in the valley for me, some day;
There will be peace in the valley for me, oh Lord I pray;
There’ll be no sadness, no sorrow,
No trouble, trouble I see;
There will be peace in the valley for me.Well the bear will be gentle,
And the wolf will be tame,
And the lion shall lay down
By the lamb, oh, yes;
And the beast from the wild,
Shall be led by a child
And I’ll be changed
Changed from this creature
that I am, oh, yes.There will be peace in the valley for me, some day;
There will be peace in the valley for me, oh Lord I pray;
There’ll be no sadness, no sorrow,
No trouble, trouble I see;
There will be peace in the valley for me.