John and I are both proud first-generation American children of European immigrants. My parents came from Denmark and Norway, John’s parents from the Italian region of Calabria. Our fathers came for opportunities that did not exist in their home countries to make a living and raise their children, truly to find the American Dream.
John’s parents met, married and had their first child, John’s oldest brother in their hometown of Cetraro, 3 hours south of Naples. His mother Concetta followed his father Pasquale via ocean liner from Naples and landed in NYC on New Year’s Day 1953 with baby Benny just 9 months old and settled in Paterson, NJ. Brothers Frank and John were born there each 4 years apart and were raised in West Paterson – now called Woodland Park.
My father came to the US from Dramman, Norway and started a business in Brooklyn. My parents met in New York City in 1956 while my mother was on a graduation trip from Denmark to visit her aunt. They were married in 1957 and settled in New Rochelle, NY where both my sister Inge and I were born. We relocated to Scotch Plains, NJ in 1965 where I spent most of my school years.
John attended Seton University in South Orange NJ with one of my best friends from Scotch Plains, JoAnn who introduced us at a holiday party she hosted. I attended Rutgers University in New Brunswick and majored in Biochemistry, John studied Communications and was a DJ at Seton Hall’s radio station. JoAnn and I would listen to John on the radio and making song requests, the one request I remember calling in was J Geils Band’s Angel in the Centerfold!
After college graduation for both of us in 1982 JoAnn planned a road trip for 8 of us to the World’s Fair in Knoxville, TN. This is where sparks started to fly, after that trip we started dating and 39 years later, we still are! I was transferred from my first job in Hackensack, NJ to Chicago and John joined me where we spent 3 cozy but cold winters.
We married in June 1986 in West Orange, NJ and decided to head west for some warmer weather and new adventures! After our amazing honey moon back to our parents’ roots in Denmark and Italy, we moved to the San Francisco Bay area, where I had family in Alameda and we bought our first home in Belmont. We enjoyed our newlywed years visiting Napa and Sonoma wine country in the summer months and Lake Tahoe in the winter. We skied all the amazing mountain resorts there, Alpine Meadows, Squaw Valley and Heavenly Valley were our favorites. We enjoyed our years as DINKS (anyone remember that? Dual Income No Kids) and started our wine journey in the early days of the Napa Valley wine explosion.
We spent many weekends in Calistoga visiting family and tasting wines, notably white zinfandel from Sutter Home was our starter wine (everyone has to start somewhere LOL!). We enjoyed concerts on the lawn at Robert Mondavi and the massive trees lining the street to Beringer. Our tastes morphed to bold reds (Beaulieu Vineyard, St Supery, Louis Martini) and sparkling wines (Schramsberg when we could afford it and Gloria Ferrer when we couldn’t). From there we started our wine journey which eventually led to our move to Portland and the Willamette Valley and Triangle Wine Country Tours!
Stay tuned for our next blog post Part II: The Child Rearing Years!
