I can’t help but think of Lucy Ricardo every year during Oregon’s grape harvest.  Yesterday, I helped friends “press” the juices from the grapes we harvested two weeks ago.  They use the word “press,” as opposed to “crush” or “stomp” that many of us associate with this process.  And no, none of us took our shoes off.  The delicate skin of the Pinot noir grape, where most of its flavor is concentrated, should not be violently abused through crushing or stomping.  We use a large cider press to gently separate the skins from the juices, leaving a large compacted “cake” of seeds, stems, and skins to recycle back to mother nature.  The fumes from the grapes that have been fermenting in their own juices for two weeks are enough to give you a buzz, and the process certainly depresses your vino appetite.  We had a couple beers at a nearby tavern to celebrate the competition of this step in the wine making process.

As a member of the fellowship of retirees, I always have time now to do a little Wikipedia research on just about anything.  The “I Love Lucy” episode called “Bitter Grapes” is from 1956, so at five years old I doubt that I remember the premiere. but my mom was such a Lucy fan that I do remember watching the show with her regularly through the years.  That particular episode starts on a cramped train to Rome where Lucy is offered a small role as a tourist in an upcoming Italian movie by the director, who just happens to be on board.  As it turns out the movie title, “Bitter Grapes” is just symbolic, but Lucy assumes it to be about wine making and goes about trying to perfect her part.  She finds a  local winery, and is selected to work in the vats because she has feet the size of “large pizzas.”   She ends up getting in a grape war with her stomping partner and returns to her hotel covered in purple-blue grape stains to accent her red hair.  The director sees her in that condition and changes his mind about using her in the movie, selecting her friend Ethel instead.

Lucille Ball, in preparing for the episode, rather than practice wanted her reaction to the grapes to be spontaneous,   Her disgust was evident, saying it felt like “stepping on eyeballs.”  The California grape farmers who donated the grapes were glad to do so as long as the producers clarified that wine was no longer made in this fashion, but instead in modern factories.  The fight scene in the vat turned out to be very real because of the language barrier.  Apparently the Italian woman with her in the vat got very angry and allegedly held her down in the grapes longer than necessary, and Lucy complained of getting grapes up her nose and nearly drowning.  The other grape-stomper, Teresa Tirelli D’Amico, also appeared in “The Godfather,” and “Godfather, Part 2.”  “Bitter Grapes,” is rated the third most popular episode of “I Love Lucy.”

I, of course, did not remember any of these details, just as I did not remember ever seeing the movie, Blade Runner.  We watched it last night in preparation to see the new Blade Runner 2049 now out in theaters.  We were going to just go and watch it last night but the only seats available were in the front row, so we decided to stay home and rent the original version.  I can’t say I’m looking forward to the sequel, but it was fun seeing Harrison Ford as a young pup.  The Los Angeles of 2019 that director, Ridley Scott, envisioned back in 1982 was far more advanced than what the city will actually look like in two more years, and I can only hope that I’ll be around and healthy to see 2049, at the ripe age of 98.  If I am still alive, I’m sure that several of my parts will be “replicants.”  I was also disturbed by the fact that when the “blade runners” dispose of the “replicants,” they use the term “retire.”