The other day at a Napa Valley College seminar at the school’s south campus on Soscol near Kennedy Park, Jenny Sercu, a great touring guide, along with a young man representing a touring agency, were prepping some 25 or so people, mostly women, on the wonders of old New York.

The group would soon be on their way to “The Big Apple,” and what wonders awaited them.

I had given a talk that very afternoon to a group of fine people at the Calistoga Library, so my wife, who would be making that trip back home, was delighted that we made the journey from Calistoga to the NVC campus just in time.

Sercu went over all the necessary procedures and rules the group would need to keep in mind, from departure time and location to their return to the Napa Valley. In addition, the travel agency rep began reciting the wonders that awaited the group 3,000 miles away in the city that never sleeps.

The young rep touched on so many delights I knew like the back of my hand: The Statue of Liberty; Ellis Island, where the great adventure began for millions of foreigners who became Americans; Battery Park; The World Trade Center Memorial near old Trinity Church and Wall Street; Chinatown and Little Italy and the Fulton Fish Market, where I walked the streets; and the list went on ... the Theater District; Central Park and “Tavern on The Green;” Shea Stadium, now Citi Field; and Yankee Stadium, home of the “Bronx Bombers.” The list was endless.

Lastly, the rep spoke of the subway trains that take New Yorkers to work in a hole in the ground, the thousands of taxicabs, and to look out for the messengers on bicycles. Crossing a New York street with a cell phone in your ear is not advised.

As a postscript, the rep mentioned the people and the fast pace these friendly folks exist in, as in, “Come on, come on, let’s go, let’s go!” He also mentioned that New Yorkers don’t have time to use the letter “G” at the end of a word, so the tour group will hear plenty of goin’, doin’, playin’, sayin’, payin’, walkin’ and talkin’. They are good people, but that’s the way they “tawwk,” the young rep smiled.

A woman in the group asked about the accommodations, and the rep mentioned the Sheraton on 52nd Street and Broadway, just north of Schubert Alley, where they will enjoy two Broadway shows. Another lady mentioned how sad it was that they would miss the annual New York St. Patrick’s Day parade, and those questions took me back a long time in miles and years.

I remembered my first St. Patrick’s Day parade as a member of N.Y.P.D. There I was, a rookie in those 1950s in a spanking new navy blue uniform, a silver shield affixed to my winter blouse (short coat) with a Pershing collar.

That was the day I first learned that rookies, especially rookies from Brooklyn precincts, were assigned to traffic duty (short straws) on the off avenues blocks away from the big parade on 5th. I could hear the fifes and drums, but never saw the parade.

Ironically, my post was the location the tour rep mentioned, 7th Avenue and 52nd Street, a tough location to work traffic duty. Oh, and it was a typical New York day in March. It began with rain that turned to sleet, but by afternoon, the sun had come out. As they say back home, “If you don’t like the weather, stick around a half hour.”

So there I am on my traffic post yelling at cabbies and saluting police brass rolling by in marked and unmarked police vehicles, and a white limo pulls up a few feet from where I’m standing. The door opens and a smiling Jackie Gleason, flanked by two blonde showgirls, says, “Hop in, kid, we’re goin’ tuh Shor’s fer a pop!”

I shook his hand and smiled an “I can’t, Jackie, I could lose my job.”

Gleason, still smiling, said, “Suit yerself kid, ketch yer later,” and I never saw Jackie Gleason “in the flesh” again.

Another St. Patrick’s Day, years later: A seasoned cop by then, I was working the parade on 5th Avenue near 70th Street. Along came Jayne Mansfield with her entourage, which included her husband, Matt Cimba, a governess, two children and two dogs.

Jayne asked this cop if the counties had passed by yet, and with “tongue in cheek” I said, “You just missed Brooklyn, but the Bronx will be coming up soon.”

An exasperated Jayne Mansfield gave out with an “I don’t mean those counties. I mean Killarney, Cork and Kerry!” Then, her frown turned into a smile and I got a hug and a kiss on the cheek when Jayne realized that a New York cop was just “pulling her leg.” Sad to say, Jayne Mansfield would die a horrible death a few years later.

However, one St. Patrick’s Day will stay with me always because, after 33 years as a member of N.Y.P.D., that was the day I signed out in a police blotter for the very last time. It wasn’t planned that way, but what better way to close out a career than with your comrades on a day when all New Yorkers were Irish, or wished they were.

Thanks to a Napa Valley College seminar, sweet memories returned, and I hope every Napan making that trip to old New York will bring home sweet memories that will last forever.

Ev Parker can be reached at evjenpar@mailbug.com or 224-9956.