Tuesday, March 20, 2018

The Idaho Champagne Story

Not everything in these pages needs to be controversial or even of broad interest.  Always remember that this column is still just "writing practice", even 850 columns later.

I suppose that the passing of Mary Tyler Moore a year or so ago will sadly allow some of us to forget her eponymous TV show of many years ago, and that would be a shame.  A show rides on the strength of its character development, and the writers of that show certainly built characters with equal parts flaws and nicer attributes, and put them together with tremendous plots and excellent comedy writing, and recurrent themes that were always good for a laugh.

One such theme was the parties that the Mary character would hold at her home.  She would invite coworkers and friends, and for as much preparation as she might put in, people were often standing around waiting for something to happen.  Her friend Rhoda might try something to liven the place up, but people would generally just take a drink and leave early.

At one such party, a few folks were on the couch around a coffee table, bored, when Rhoda desperately looked around for a conversation starter.  She reached over to the coffee table, picked up a bottle of wine, looked at the label and said "Hey, I didn't know they made champagne in Idaho!"

I remember hearing that when the episode first aired, and rolling on the floor laughing.  Maybe you had to be there, but in context it was a hysterical line.  And I credited that line to the writers of that show for a long time, before Al Gore's Amazing Internet informed me that in fact, that exact line had first been said dismissively by Ingrid Bergman in the movie "Cactus Flower", and possibly before that in the Broadway version of that story.

I didn't know that back in 1987, when I was working as the MIS director for a company that was into distance learning and computer-based education, at least such as the technology was in 1987.  We had an affiliation with Boise State University, a pioneer in distance learning and offering remote degrees, and I had hoped to wangle a trip out there, since at the time, Idaho was one of four states I'd never visited.

I didn't get there, at least that year, but my company, based in Alexandria, Virginia, did host the team lead of some of the distance-ed work we were doing out at Boise State.  We went out to lunch during his visit, and naturally, in the provincial way I might have been acting at the time, I happened to mention the joke from the show to him.

He looked at me a bit oddly, and mentioned that it was sort of a strange thing that I thought it funny, since they certainly did make champagne out there, and would be happy to send me a bottle.

Aside to any possible Frenchmen reading this (and my readership does include people with French IP addresses) ... yes, I know that if the stuff is not actually grown from, and made in, the proper part of France, you are not supposed to call it "champagne."  The good news is that I don't really care.

True to his word, the young fellow did send me a bottle when he got back home.  It had been made at the Ste. Chappelle winery in Caldwell, Idaho and it was truly unmemorable, although in fairness that was 30 years ago and I only remember what I thought at the time.  But I kept the empty bottle for decades after opening it, positioning it in a prominent place in my various offices over the years.  It was, after all, a conversation starter.

I did, in fact, get to Idaho a few years later (and North Dakota in 2011, leaving only Alaska and Montana).  I was changing planes in Spokane in 1993, and with nothing do do for a few hours, rented a car and drove the 30 miles to the Idaho line.  I turned around in a Welcome Center, picked up a brochure with a beautiful picture of a mountain lake, that I would later frame; a couple cookies courtesy of the ladies auxiliary of a local Coeur d'Alene service organization who would not accept a donation; and a lottery ticket to amaze my friends.

I should then have stopped using Idaho as the place I'd reference when I wanted to refer to somewhere remote and relatively uninhabited, but I still do.  It is in seven other columns on this site alone, five of which use it in just that manner.

So call this column "atonement."  Idaho, I'm sorry.

Copyright 2018 by Robert Sutton
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