Visiting a pair of friends in storm-swept Santa Barbara this week...
...and the wealthy Southern California tourist town is looking as ridiculously beautiful as ever in the winter light.
My friends are the only two people I met as a teenager who are still friends, and in a bit of good fortune, they are aging nicely.
Jack Murray (above), a retired UC Santa Barbara French professor who turned 80 this year, seems to be getting happier with every day he's not working, which is something of an inspiration.
my grandparents used to live in Montecito....if you're familiar with the old Miramar Inn, their house was built BEFORE the hotel, and we used to be surrounded by those bungalows.
ReplyDeleteWe used to hang out with that crazy french dude who was the lifeguard, and years later, I remember drinking at the bar after my grandma's memorial service...
It looks awefully nice down there! Have a great New Years!
ReplyDeleteI like your friend Jack's approach to retirement -- punching a time-clock is for the birds...
ReplyDeleteAnd thanks for triggering memories of when I was going to school in Santa Barbara -- Brooks Institute of Photogrphy, although I only stayed at the school one term. (((learned a bunch of stuff, however)))
I bet you, Mike, or your friends know some of the "Brookies" -- they're hard to miss with their tripods and exposure meters. The campus is an old Spanish style mansion -- quite a place...
Was a family operation for years but I think they've gone "big time" recently.