My much-better-half and I were driving home from the Bay Area after visiting the sunshine smiles of our two young granddaughters and, because our legs grumbled and our stomachs rumbled, decided to stop in Santa Barbara to stretch and eat.
My lobster roll was Maine-worthy delicious, the clam chowder too, and Lisa’s shrimp tacos were as good as they come at Broad Street Oyster Company. But it was the dessert, so to speak, that truly made the meal memorable.
With the portions being generous, I stepped away to get take-away containers but first went to the men’s room and then got sidetracked looking at some grainy black-and-white surfing photographs from the Beach Boy’s era. By the time I returned to our patio table, I found a small party had broken out.
Alone when I left her, Lisa was now in animated conversation with three young strangers, all college age – two girls, one brunette with shoulder-length straight hair, the other having blonde waves cascading halfway down her back; and one guy, the boyfriend of the blonde it turned out.
The young trio greeted me by singing out in cheerleader-like fashion, “U! C! S! B!” and “Gaucho love!”
Quickly, my wife added, with a silly laugh and twinkle in her eye and a grin that together suggested she had just had two tall pours of Chardonnay instead of an iced tea: “I told them!”
“Told them what?” I asked, fully befuddled.
“How we met at UCSB and fell in love—”
“—and how you’ve been married forty years,” the brunette chimed in happily.
In the seven or so minutes I was gone, Lisa had for some reason told these students from our alma mater about a long-ago day in late May, only weeks before I was to graduate; she had received her diploma a year earlier and stuck around to work at a downtown indie bookstore while putting her career plans on hold to be with me; and now we were talking about what came next.
I said I would go wherever I could find a sportswriting job and she replied, without an eye blink’s hesitation, “That’s where I’m going, too.”
In quite possibly the least romantic proposal ever, especially when you consider we were in the kitchen of her off-campus apartment with an ocean backyard and thus popping the question on bended knee on the beach was only a minute’s walk away, I blurted out, without forethought and without a ring: “I guess we might as well get married then.”
All of this, and more, Lisa shared in my absence and now in my presence the college boy said: “Seems like it was a pretty great proposal – forty years is impressive.”
Next he asked, “How do you know when it’s the right person?” and Lisa answered, “I think you just know – and it helps if you can laugh together.”
He then looked to me and I said, basically, find someone who is super kind and would smile warmly at three strangers on a chilly evening and offer them her outdoor table with the only working heater.
The college boy, a biotech major, further shared that he was planning to move to San Francisco, where he grew up, after his upcoming graduation but his girlfriend was intent on staying in Santa Barbara. He specifically wanted my advice.
The blonde smiled at my answer and her boyfriend also grinned before announcing enthusiastically and surprisingly, “Yes, I just might flip your script!” and at this the blonde’s smile suddenly reached all the way to Santa Cruz Island.
“Gaucho love!” strikes again, I hope.
* * *
Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn
Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.
