Benefield: Annadel, Henry Trione’s gift

It had been a wretched day.

My dad was not well and would not be truly well ever again. I had just left from a visit with him and walked past my car - I kept walking until I was through the gate into Annadel State Park and at the foot of Cobblestone Trail.

And then I ran.

Away from people and beeping machines and caring nurses and not-as-caring administrators. About 400 yards from a source of sadness was a nearly majestic source of solace and quiet and, quite literally, breathtaking beauty.

Annadel, on that day, was a gift to me.

That was in 2012, when the state parks were in the throes of dramatic budget cuts and threats of closure and all the rest. I was so thankful for Annadel being my back door neighbor that I went home and wrote a check to the parks fund.

What I should have done was write a thank you Henry Trione.

Trione, a shrewd businessman and a benefactor to this community in more ways than we are likely ever to realize, died last week at the age of 94.

It was Trione who cut the deal that secured 5,000 acres of oaks and meadows and cobblestone from becoming what had been earmarked for development. It was Trione who gave more than $1 million to preserve this space for this community.

It’s 5,000 acres in the middle of Santa Rosa. A place where people run, bike, hike and ride horses. In the heart of this city. It is a wonder.

Would Annadel be Annadel if not for Trione?

“Absolutely not,” Sonoma County Regional Parks Director Caryl Hart. “If Henry Trione had not lived, Annadel would be a subdivision. It was the establishment of a critical and absolutely magnificent piece of land right in the middle of an urban area long before that was even considered important.”

Annadel has been more than important in the life of Santa Rosan Amie Glass. It’s been a marker of many of life’s milestones.

Her first date with her high school sweetheart, Jonathan, was in the park. Her daughter Eden’s first hike was in Annadel. And her last family portrait with Jonathan was taken among the oaks with the city stretching out below.

This month marks the two-year anniversary of Jonathan Glass’s death at 36. A bedrock of her childhood, as well as her relationship with Jonathan, the park remains a central part of Amie’s growth and healing.

She has spots she visits regularly. They are not marked by trails or signage, but by the rocks and natural signs she has nearly memorized.

“It’s a place to be still and reflect and get centered and gain strength to go back down to the city and face the world again,” she said.

“It’s so much more than exercise to me,” she said. “To me, it’s a place to go for healing, inspiration and restoration.”

Her home is near the base of the park. She lives there purposefully, so she can be in the park within moments and nearly as often as she’d like.

“There is so much to inspire us and to remind us of what really matters and to connect with the power and hope inside of us,” she said.

Carl Triola, too, lives just footsteps away from the park.

And thanks to the people drawn to that space - the former staff sergeant in the Air Force and a retired cardiac nurse - Triola, now 46, still lives just footsteps away from the park.

In was seven years ago that Casa Grande’s cross country coach was finishing a run and collapsed near an exit gate. His heart had stopped because of abnormal heart rhythm. Fellow park-goers, the staff sergeant and the nurse, attended to him and performed CPR until paramedics arrived and shocked Triola’s heart back to normal rhythm.

“I do think about it,” he said of the spot where he came so very near to death. “I’ll go by the trail and think ‘This is where I was running.’ But for me it was, ‘How do I want to approach life?’ I could have said ‘I’m not going to run anymore.’”

But Annadel, and all that is means to Triola’s fitness and literally his survival, is his neighbor.

“It is there, it still beckons me,” he said.

And he talks to himself about it, just a little.

“It’s still there, and you are still there, so be fit,” he said. “Maybe that is the reason I survived, because I run and I was fit.”

Annadel has those regenerative powers - literally - for Triola, but also for people like Amie Glass. And maybe for me.

Did Henry Trione know that his gift, his foresight 46 years ago, would help people find renewal and healing, along with sweat and fun? Did he understand that 5,000 acres can be bigger and better than a space five times as big if they have the beauty to transport you from the city, from your thoughts, from anything you’d like a breather from?

I’d like to think he did.

Chapeau, Henry Trione.

You can reach staff columnist Kerry Benefield at 526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com, on Twitter @benefield and Instagram at kerry.benefield