First, I would like to apologize for neglecting my blog for two months. There is an old saying that life is what happens to us as we are making other plans. I have found it to be very true in my life. In the last two months, I have had, with my friends and family, four hospital stays, one major move from one house to another house, one clearing out a room in my house so I could rent it. On top of that we have to throw in Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, and just general living, like doing the final chores of publishing my two new books. Life is always so much more interesting than just living. There was one thing that happened that I would like to share.

On my lady friend’s birthday, I took her to Catalina Island to show her where I had spent a good part of my younger days working my way through college. I promised to take her to the best place on the island to have lunch.

The trip to the island was fun. We saw lots of dolphins, a whale, and the seas were calm. When we got there, we walked in the town. I was using my walker as I knew we could be walking around all day long. There’s only one person on the island, I know really well, that is still alive from those days – the barber, Lolo. So, the first place we went was to the barbershop to say hello.

We had a nice visit and then I told Lolo that Karin and I are going to the Country Club for lunch, and he replied, “No you’re not.”

I asked him what he meant, he said that the Country Club was no longer functioning. I said “Poopoo, (or something like that), I wanted to take Karin to the very best restaurant on the Island, it’s her birthday.”

He said, “That would be Mount Ebby. I will call them and see if you can get in.”

He called them and got a machine that said they would call him back. We waited 20 minutes and they never called back, so he called again. They still didn’t call back, so Karin said why don’t we just go there and wait until they have a table. That made good sense to me; I asked Lolo where is it, and how do we get there?

It turned out to be the Wrigley Mansion on top of the hill, and I couldn’t walk there with my walker. Lolo said, “No problem” and handed me the keys to his golf cart. Karin and I got in the cart and had a great ride up the mountain to the Mansion. Just before we got to the gate a taxi passed us. When we got to the big steel gate that had a sign on it which said “No Public Access”, the taxi was driving through so, of course, I just followed it in as the gate closed behind us.

We drove up the road to the mansion and parked our golf cart at the end. We got out and holding hands walked into the patio, saying good morning to a couple of maids that were pushing laundry carts around, and then walked into a beautiful big room, through an open door, into the Mansion. No one was around so we walked into and through another fantastically decorated room and could see, through the windows, a few people eating at tables out on the veranda, which was looking over the town of Avalon.

Walking out onto the veranda, we were greeted by the head waiter who looked up and said, “You look familiar.”  I replied, “That’s very possible,” thinking I might have known him in the old days when I lived there. He took us to a table that was set for two, where we could overlook the entire town.

We had a wonderful relaxed lunch. Looking over the beautiful town of Avalon. We spent two hours just enjoying lunch and me telling all the stories of my work days as a young man. While we were there another couple came, looked out onto the veranda, but there were no available tables, so they left.

As we left we wandered through a couple more incredibly decorated rooms, looked for a bathroom, found one, used it, and then got in our golf cart to go back down the mountain, two very happy campers. We got back to Lolo’s barbershop and returned his golf cart keys, thanking him profusely for a wonderful afternoon. Then we wandered through town to the casino. We came to realize that the mansion had been turned into a very exclusive hotel, and that the meals served there were for the people staying there. The couple that came and looked out were probably the ones that were supposed to be at our table.

It just goes to prove that if you act like you belong some place, no one will question you. It was a wonderful day. All because of Lolo, his golf cart, and the taxi that just happened to pass by at exactly the right moment. I would call this true serendipity.