Tag Archives: Santa Barbara

Posted in Family

A Flock of Sparrows

By Comments:19 Comments

by Bob Sparrow

Sparrows in the 50s

Last weekend was a very special weekend, as it was a gathering of Sparrows.  My two siblings and I, along with our spouses, met at Jack & Sharon’s last weekend in Santa Maria.  As you might imagine, Suzanne and I communicate rather regularly as we have each other edit our blog prior to posting every Monday (guaranteed that Suzanne finds a lot more things to edit than I do!) as well as talking on the phone periodically.  Brother Jack and I usually talk on the phone about once a week, but during football season, it jumps to sometimes 4-5 times a day, as we have practice bets in preparation for real bets when we get to Vegas, which is in two weeks.  But personal visits are much rarer, once, maybe twice, a year the three couples get together – so last weekend was special.

What I think is most unusual about our sibling relationship, is that I can’t remember a harsh word spoken between us since . . . ever!  I truly love both my brother and my sister.  Some of you are thinking, “Duh”, who doesn’t love their brother and sister and some of you are thinking, “You don’t know my brother/sister!”  We have our parents to thank for creating such a loving home.

So, what do we do when we get together, you ask?  Eat, drink, laugh, share what’s happening in our lives, talk about our kids and grandkids, then eat, drink and laugh some more.

Brothers Restaurant at the Red Barn

As fun as the weekend was, it didn’t start out well, given traffic for Linda and me going north on 101 through Santa Barbara – it seems for the last 20 years they’ve been widening that freeway, but it seems to get narrower.  Suzanne and Al experienced similar traffic conditions coming south from Nipomo.

Once settled in Santa Maria, the festivities began with a fantastic dinner and family history discussion at one of the best restaurants in Santa Barbara County, Brothers Restaurant at the Red Barn in San Ynez, where, after Jack and I hoisted a martini to our dad, I had the best Petrale sole I’ve ever had.  Everyone’s dinner was delicious!

Saturdays during football season is something the three of us love, so the day was spent in our ‘football jerseys’ in front of the TV.   Jack and I made some ‘pretend bets’ in preparation for Vegas; and like the week before, we killed it with our ‘pretend bets’.  If you don’t hear about our bets in Vegas in a couple of weeks, you’ll know why Vegas can keep the bright lights on all night!  The day went well, with Suzanne and Al rooting USC to a comfortable victory of Stanford, while Utah was able to handle Southern Utah 73 – 7.

Finally, before leaving for home, we took the requisite photo of the three Sparrow siblings.  You can see that we’ve hardly changed a bit!!

Sparrows in the 60s

 

 

Sparrows in the 70s

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sparrrows in the 80s

Sparrows in the 90s

 

 

 

 

 

Sparrows in the 00s

Sparrows with hats

Sparrows now

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in travel

Birthday on the Central Coast

By Comments:2 Comments

by Bob Sparrow

The Central Coast

These days the trips are shorter, requiring no air travel, but we’re lucky we live in such a diverse area – not as diverse as say, Seattle, that now has a foreign country in the middle of downtown, but diverse none the less.  The occasion for this trip up to the Central Coast, was brother, Captain Jack Sparrow’s last birthday as a 70-something.

Three hours on the freeway north through traffic that was Covid-light on a Monday morning, brought us to Santa Barbara – where we wondered if anything was open to grab a bite to eat.  Much to our surprise, Santa Barbara’s hot spot, State Street, had been closed off to auto traffic, but restaurants had open their doors and spread out onto the street for foot traffic, making rows of sidewalk cafes dotted with an occasional street musician.  It was a beautiful, Mediterranean climate afternoon, giving State Street a Paris/Tuscany ambiance.

It took a lot of wine for her to put on the 49er sweatshirt!

After lunch, another hour up a beautiful, coastline stretch of Highway 1, finds us in Santa Maria, home to Jack & Sharon.  Late afternoon finds their group of friends, ‘The Magnificent Seven’ stopping by for pre-birthday cocktails.  Later, dinner of BBQ’d hamburgers was highlighted by a cool Central Coast evening that required Linda, a staunch Minnesota Viking fan, to don a 49ers sweatshirt.  Loved it!!

The next morning we decided to take the ‘birthday boy’ for a nice breakfast in Pismo Beach.  We found the beautiful ocean-front hotel, The Lido, which was serving breakfast on their scenic ocean-view patio.  Again, perfect weather and a great menu made for a happy birthday breakfast.

That evening, Sharon’s daughter, Debra, her husband, Steve and one of their four sons, Corey, who all live in Santa Maria, came over for a BBQ rib dinner with lots of great wine.

The birthday breakfast on the Lido patio

During the course of the weekend Jack received birthday calls from our sister, Suzanne (you remember her from last week’s blog), his kids, Shelley Watson and Matt Sparrow, both living in Arizona, as well as several others, including his two excellent receivers from his high school football team, Pete Ferrarese, still living in our home town of Novato and Chuck Coleman, in Florida. I’m sure they discussed all the touchdowns they were responsible for.

While you many not get coast-to-coast birthday calls from old high school teammates, if you live in the Golden State, you can certainly take advantage of being relatively close to the beautiful Central Coast – take a road trip, you’ll love it!

Posted in travel

“Stay Active!”

By Comments:8 Comments

by Bob Sparrow

Sharon & Jack

Officially Spring will not be sprung until 5:58 p.m. on Wednesday, March 20, but this past weekend temperatures inched into the 80s and more importantly the rain stopped. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved the rain, but enough already! If I liked rain that much I would have moved to Seattle.

Linda and I took off for Santa Maria on Friday morning to attend the 80th birthday party of my sister-in-law, Sharon.  Our first stop was at Dana’s bakery in Monrovia, for their famous blueberry pancakes and the best bacon ever. But the best part of breakfast was time with granddaughter, Addison, who never ceases to amaze us.

Addison

We took a detour on our way up through Simi Valley, were we visited the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library to see an exhibit on Pompeii; as we will be visiting Pompeii later this year on our cruise around Italy. The exhibit included lots of information about life in the Roman Empire in the year 79 A.D. and in particular on the date of August 24th when Mt. Vesuvius erupted in a most dramatic style and buried the entire city of Pompeii under millions of tons of volcanic ash. With no planes, trains or automobiles to quickly get out of town, over 2,000 people were killed and fossilized in various positions trying to get out of the city.

While at the library, I took a picture of Linda with Ronnie and Nancy, who appeared a little stiff.

Our cloudless sunny drive continued over to the coast to Santa Barbara and lunch on the water at the Blue Water Grill, just across PCH from Stearns Wharf where we enjoyed the sun and salt air as we strolled the pier after lunch. We continued our drive up the coast and then inland to Santa Maria for a pre-birthday dinner at Jack & Sharon’s house.

Saturday morning we took a drive up the coast on another beautiful sunny day (it was almost like living in California) and had lunch at Wooly’s on the sand at Pismo Beach before returning to Santa Maria Country Club for Sharon’s birthday celebration which was attended by a group of 30 some odd family and friends, including both her children, Debbie and Brad, six of her seven grandchildren and 1 great grandchild. Sharon looks 65 and has plenty of spunk. When I asked her what her secret was she said, “Stay active!”

We’re just trying to keep up!

Posted in Blog Info / Up-dates

THE BACKYARD BLOG ABOUT NOTHING

By Comments:3 Comments

by Bob Sparrow

nothing1I know I don’t always succeed, but I always try to write something entertaining about where I’ve been or where I’m going, as I love travel and I seem to look at things from a little different perspective than most others. Or I’ll write about some little, but hopefully interesting, observation of life. Sister Suzanne does a particularly great job of the latter – I mean really, she brought us to tears last week writing about taking her dog for a walk out to the end of her driveway. Me – not so much, as I said, I usually rely on ‘going somewhere’ and hoping to find something interesting to write about.

sb coast

Santa Barbara coast

Last week I was supposed to go on a camping trip along the Santa Barbara coast, exploring the beaches and cliffs of this beautiful area, but for various reasons that I’m sure you’re not interested in – heck, I’m not even that interested – the trip was cancelled. So there I was, ready to regale you with my adventurous treks along the beautiful Central Coast and now I’ve got nothing. Didn’t go anywhere. Didn’t see anything interesting. Nothing extraordinary happened to me. Didn’t discover any special or unique places. I’ve got nothing. Even though Seinfeld made a career out of it, it’s hard to write about nothing. Although some have said there’s a lot of nothing in many of my previous blogs.

pal2

Deck-side umbrella table and palapa

fireplace

Outside fireplace

So last weekend instead of camping in the Chumash Mountain Wilderness, I wandered around in my backyard. No, I didn’t camp there, although there have been occasions, when the kids were younger, when I’d pitch a tent on the back lawn, spend the night in it and be awakened in the morning by the sprinklers that I forgot to turn off. So, this week my ‘going somewhere’ turned out to be my backyard, and while I enjoy putzing around back there, I’m not finding anything of interest to write about this week. Unlike my sister’s backyard, which has Pinnacle Peak, I have no natural landmarks. I do however have some ‘man-made’ landmarks and so I wander around back there trying to find inspiration from them. I look past the pool deck umbrella table where no one is sitting to the palapa that no one is sitting under, and I get no inspiration . . . nothing. I check the ‘Tiki Bar’ to see if there are any stragglers left over from the weekend, perhaps with a good story to tell that would make for an interesting blog . . . nothing. I recently bought a new umbrella for our outside fireplace area, and although it’s nice, it’s hardly blog-worthy. I crank up some Jimmy Buffet music through the outside speakers hoping to get some inspiration from him . . . nothing. We bought this house new 28 years ago and the backyard was just dirt . . . nothing. And today in terms blog inspiration . . . nothing. I’m thinking maybe I should talk to some of the plants; perhaps they’ll talk back and give me something to write about. I bend down and put my ear to the hydrangeas . . . nothing.

bar

The Tiki Bar

plumeria

Plumeria

 

Behind the pool is what I called my ‘Ho’omana’O Honopua’, which loosely translate in Hawaiian to ‘Memorial Garden’. I love Hawaii, so my intent with this garden was to bring Hawaii to my backyard, so I wouldn’t have to pay airfare or expensive hotel rates to enjoy the sights and smell of palms and plumeria. I’ve told my family that I’d like my ashes under the moai (stone monoliths from Easter Island – a bucket list destination) on the right in the picture below. It is already a memorial garden in that when I returned from my best friend, Don Klapperich’s funeral, I purchased the moai on the left in the picture below and buried under it a shell casing from the rifles fired during the military memorial service.

memorial garden

Ho’ Omana ‘ o Honopua

It’s getting dark and there will be no lights turned on in the backyard tonight, no tiki torches lit, no music playing, no adult beverages consumed; there will be, like this blog . . . nothing.