dana cronin

The Endangered Heart of Wine County

I grew up in one of the top wine meccas of the world: Napa Valley, Calif. Wine Country. It’s a place where the majority of people you see walking down Main Street are tourists, slowing traffic to admire the vineyards and wineries along the highway. It’s a place where high school students have the option of enrolling in a viticulture class, where it’s weird for the parents of a friend not to be involved in the wine industry, and where I’ve dealt with numerous inebriated customers at work, drunk from wine tasting all day.

The Holy Foreskin

I shoved my way onto a crowded moving walkway, craned my neck upward, and there she was: El Virgen de Guadalupe. Within 30 seconds, the moving walkway ended, and she was no longer in sight. I was in a crowded church in Mexico City, where I was surrounded by hundreds of admirers, to get a good look at the tapestry where, legend has it, the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared in 1531.

Your Father Went Here Too?

With admissions decisions looming, I sat in my college counselor’s office seeking words of comfort. I had applied early decision to Colorado College, and there was not much else I could think about for those few days than how crushed I would be if I were denied.

“Don’t worry, you’re in,” Mrs. Meineke told me.

I wondered if she was only saying that because she knew my dad went to CC thirty years ago.

But she was right. I got in.