A Napa childhood idea—and one unforgettable parade machine

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My dad managed the Mt. Eden ranch on the Oakville Crossroad after returning home from WWII. The Mt. Eden ranch is the current location of the Rudd and PlumpJack wine estates.

Our house was surrounded by vineyards. When I tell people that, they imagine an idyllic setting in which to grow up. But to me, it wasn’t. I envied the kids living in neighborhoods in St. Helena. Life on the ranch seemed boring by comparison. I had to seek out entertainment to keep myself busy.

So, I spent lots of time at a workbench in an old barn across from our house. Most of my barn time was spent tinkering with old “stuff” I found in the barn, on the ranch or in the winery (which had been closed since Prohibition). I was a slow learner and got shocked several times over the years tampering with electrical devices. It’s a wonder I didn’t accidentally kill myself. I would also craft wood things out of whatever I could find. My dad was very tolerant of us using his tools. I never told him, or my mom, about the times I got shocked.

Apparently, I never created anything worth documenting, but my brother Davie did. My Mom took 8mm videos of one of his projects and we have these pictures:

The “Rube Goldberg machine” my brother was referring to, was my Piña Parade Vehicle (PPV). How could he not know that?

My brothers and good friends will confirm that I entertain lots of crazy ideas. Maybe half of them are successful, so I prefer to say my ideas have a .500 batting average — better than anybody in the big leagues.

About 25 years ago, I had this crazy idea of building a parade vehicle that was circular and could rotate in circles as well as travel forward and backward.

These were my earliest designs for that “contraption:”

I eventually found a used, heavy duty wheelchair for sale in Napa. I disassembled it, saving the parts I needed for my PPV.

The first step was building a frame for those wheelchair parts. Below is a picture of that work in progress.

That same year, 2003, I was elected Bocce Club president and devoted excessive amounts of time to that job.

The PPV project got put on the back burner and stayed there well beyond my time as Bocce Club president. In 2011, I got back to working on it.

Do you think that this low-budget bandana air breathing filter would be OSHA approved?

And this is my son Tyler giving the bare bones machine a test run. Look how excited Yogi Bear was!

The project started shaping up, but still had a long way to go:

After countless hours of modifying the “contraption,” it was ready for its first parade.

So, the inaugural voyage was on Sunday, Sept. 4, 2011, when we participated in the Tomales Founders Day Parade. My good friend Joe Bauer helped me set up the PPV before the parade. Lori Bauer piloted the vehicle with my ex Cindy as a passenger:

What a fun event that was, with people dancing in the streets! I suggest you check it out this year. It is now called the Tomales Festival:

That was the first real test of the PPV, and it performed well. I made a few modifications and entered it into the 2011 Yountville Parade.

I believe the theme was Yountville Cooks. Look for the rotisserie that actually rotated with a chicken over a faux flame.

BTW, we had to listen to that annoying siren from another float for the entire parade.

That video was taken after we passed the judges’ stand. At that point, it had already blown the left drive tire off its rim. We went just a bit farther and threw in the towel across from the French Laundry. But we did take first place in our category!

The PPV required a few more modifications before I hauled it to Calistoga for the Calistoga Lighted Tractor Parade of 2011. This next video is not great quality, but it does show the versatility of the PPV sporting a Christmas tree and lights:

The next video of the whole parade is better quality and was posted by VisitCalistoga. The PPV makes its appearance at the 4:30 mark into the video.

So, that contraption has been sitting in a barn gathering dust for the last 15 years. If anybody is interested in resurrecting it, I’m sure my brother would give you a good deal.

Ranndy Piña
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