Father Time, Mother Nature

I guess because I talk so much, at least when I get on a roll, people don’t understand that I’m just painfully and disgustingly bashful.

It is just about impossible for me to start up a conversation with people who I haven’t been formally introduced to.

I’ve pretty much always assumed that people regard me as some sort of asshole because I don’t talk to them, but, no, being an asshole or not, I just don’t know how to start up a casual conversation.

Obviously, such an affliction really cuts into one’s ability to meet girls. I’ve always been a horrible “pick-up artist.” Usually, as my history clearly shows, when I meet new, beautiful women, it’s because they pick me up, or, I guess, to avoid the negative connotations of “pick up” I might simply use the word “meet.” I meet my women because they initiate the contact, I usually don’t.

In the mid 1980s, I was sitting at the end of the bar at Carry Nations, towards the parking lot end of the place, waiting for some friends to show up for an informal business meeting.

It was late afternoon and the sun was pouring in from the beveled glass windows on the the Santa Cruz Avenue end of Carry’s.

The glare from that sunlight made it hard to make out more than sharp silhouettes of the folks at the other end of the room.

There were two pretty attractive ladies sitting about mid-bar but, without being real obvious, it was hard to make out their details due to the glare. I was pretty sure one of them was paying a lot of attention to me, sitting all alone and solo, but I just wasn’t sure, due to the glare.

However, when the bartender put a shot of Wild Turkey in front of me, nodding to the more slender of the two silhouettes mid-bar, well, there was no doubt. I raised the shot glass in thanks and she bent a little in my direction and smiled big, and I could see she was a knock-out gorgeous lady.

Well, of course, we had to do something about this. I slid off my stool and went over to thank her once more. As I walked up to her, she put her hand up to her mouth and turned her head away. She turned her face back to me and it was all red ...

“Oh my,” she said, “I thought you were somebody else.”

“Who did you think I was?” I asked.

“An old Los Gatos friend,” she answered, “I used to live here, I know a lot of folks in town.”

“Well, I’ve been here forever, myself. Who did you think I was?”

“Marty Rice, did you know him?”

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