One beautiful sunny morning in California I got up, threw on my swimsuit and headed to the pool as part of my usual routine. Just as the sun takes time to rise...so do I. Simply stated, I am not a morning person. It takes me awhile to wake up and I am better off if I do it alone. I don’t like to chat or make conversation and am easily irritated in the morning. It’s not my best feature, I admit, but it's just how I roll. The nice thing about waking up by the pool is most mornings no one is there...by the time I get there any way. The ladies have already done their morning aerobics in the pool and are on with their day. So it was normally just me and my headphones, taking my time to rise and shine.
This morning was different. I noticed that there was a guy, laying on the opposite end of pool, who seemed to be passed out in the warm sun, sleeping. I was too groggy to notice anything else and placed my self pretty much at the other end of where he was, so I would have my space. I got comfortable, plugged in my headphones and closed my eyes, enjoying the feeling of the warm sun, as it kissed my skin ever so gently. It was the most divine way to spend a morning. As I was grooving to my tunes I thought I heard something. I raised my head from my chair to look around. The guy at the opposite end of the pool was saying something to me, but I couldn’t hear with my headphones in. I removed one ear and said, “Huh?” He said, “Hey, what’s up?” Being in no mood to converse I said, “Hey” and put my headphones back in and closed my eyes. Getting back into my music and ready to relax I heard something again. So again, I looked up, looked over and this guy was trying to talk to me. Irritated I removed my headphones again and looked over and said, “What?” He said, “You look like you just woke up?” I thought, really, you felt the need to tell me that?! No duh. I thought is this guy really gonna keep bugging me - I am in no mood. So in order to show him I wasn’t interested in the chit-chat, I flipped over on my stomach hoping he would get the hint. It wouldn’t be easy for me to talk laying like this, so maybe he would leave me alone. I nestled into my spot and back in went my headphones. A minute later I heard a voice much closer to me and was startled when I looked up and he was sitting right next to me! I thought, oh man, this guy really is not going to leave me alone. Geez!
He began asking me a few questions about how long I was visiting and who was I staying with. I asked him the same to be sociable. He told me that his parents lived in the RV resort year round and he lived in Mission Beach, which was about 30 minutes up the coast, but came down to see them pretty often. After getting over being mildly irritated, we actually had a nice conversation and ended up talking for about an hour. Next thing I knew he was asking me if I wanted to walk over to the deli and grab some lunch with him. I normally don’t eat for awhile after I wake up and wasn’t really hungry. At first I told him, no thanks. He said, “Come on, just walk down there with me and we can keep talking while I grab a sandwich.” I thought, man I am not going to get rid of this guy! So I agreed to walk with him over to the deli. He seemed pretty harmless anyway.
Come to find out through our conversation, he was a surfer. Said he surfed every morning in Mission Beach before he went to work. He kind of looked like what I imagined a surfer to look like. He was in good shape, muscular and trim with a six pack, had kind of free-flowing sun bleached hair above his shoulders and had a surfer “slang” when he talked. There was a lot of, “No way” and “ Totally stoked” in his vocabulary. I wasn’t impressed and sometimes wasn’t even sure what he was saying. As we sat at the deli, and I watched him eat his sandwich, we talked about a lot of different things. He was working for his brother, not far from there, at a sign company. It was a family business. One his father had started many, many years ago, back in the Chicago area, and all of his brothers had some kind of sign business as a result in various parts of the country. We talked about where I was from and what we did with our time at the RV resort. I told him there wasn’t a whole lot happening at the resort but that my parents were musicians and were hired to play at the “Happy Hour” being held in the club room of the RV resort. Told him my dad played the guitar and my mom played the organ and they both sang. He thought that was pretty cool. He wanted to know what kind of music they played, so I told him old country standards with a little Frank Sinatra and Elvis mixed in. I explained to him how we were a musical family and had performed since we were young at various functions and also at nursing homes to entertain the elderly. He mentioned how he always wished he had musical talent but his family was not musical at all. He thought it would be so awesome to be able to play a musical instrument. I told him I played piano, a little violin, and flute. Oh, and I sing too. He couldn’t believe it. He asked if that’s what my parents did for a living then. Normally, if I was hanging out with a guy I was interested in, I might not say right away that my dad is a minister. I always figured they would run for the hills. But with this guy, I wasn’t interested at all, so I told him straight up. My dad is a minister and that’s the reason we're here. He is helping people learn about the Bible. My parents just play music to help provide for us, being my dad doesn’t take money for preaching. His eyes got a little wide and he said, “Whooaaaa…no way” like that was heavy or something. He seemed intrigued and interested though.
After we talked for a while, and he finished his sandwich, we walked back to the RV resort and said our goodbyes. He walked back to his parents trailer, so he could grab his truck and get to work, and I walked back to mine. I thought to myself...that was interesting. He was really different from anyone I had met before. He was so laid back and easy going. He was really easy to talk to. He also had a kind of confidence in who he was, and was in no way apologetic for his “surfer" thing. He owned it. I really didn’t know what to think of him but...he was a really nice guy. At this point in my life, I was pretty frustrated with guys that had come and gone, and I had kind of given up on finding anyone that was worth spending time with. I had faith that God would bring the right person for me, when the time was right, and I just had to be patient. He knew what I wanted and what I needed. Matter of fact I had made a list, at my father’s suggestion, of all the things I wanted in a husband earlier that year. I thought it was a little silly, but it gave me a chance to think about it anyway, which I had never done. I knew I was too young to be thinking long term, even though I wasn’t into dating - just to date - either. I had resolved to let God handle it and was kind of over it. This guy was most certainly not my type and I figured I would never see him again, so went on with my day as usual and really gave it no thought.
A few days later, at the RV resort “Happy Hour” he walked in with his parents. I was surprised to see him there. There were never any younger people at these things. He looked different. He was kind of wearing a breezy, rust colored shirt - almost Hawaiian style - that buttoned up with a collar, some light colored cotton pants and red converse sneakers, accompanied by his kind of crazy surfer hair. He hung out at his parents table, and at one point said “Hi” to me. I was busy doing my thing. I was kind of in my element at the Happy Hours. My sister and I would dress up and dance with the various retired people there, that we knew, and we always had a good time. At one point, he introduced me to his mom and told her he had met me by the pool the other day. I said it was nice to meet her and went back to doing my thing. I saw him dancing with his mom that night. Her face was so lit up, as they were dancing and both laughing. His larger than life persona translated to the dance floor. I thought it was adorable to see him dancing like that and having fun with her. We didn’t interact much that night, other than the introduction to his mom. After it was over, and my parents were packing up their instruments, he said to me as he was leaving, “Maybe I’ll see you around.” I was like, “Yeah...sure” not really knowing how to respond, or what that meant. Again, I figured I’d never see him, but then, I did…and little did I know, this surfer would make waves in my life.
♥️LGOF