Inevitably, as we hang out in this wonderful post-beach town of Santa Barbara
someone will throw out an undeniable comment like, "This is the most beautiful city in the world".
Really. They say exactly that. "The most"
I usually say, "You know whats more beautiful than the mountains and sea in this town? Nothing, cause its so unfreaking believable. The air smells beautiful like a febreze.com factory and everyone who lives here beautifully gets younger and younger like beautiful Brad Pitt."
You can't just walk around in mandals and a Big Dog shirt and say absolutes like "the most" when you are at a loss for words.
When I'm at a loss for words, I go uncomfortable silence. I let the silence get so thick that the person I am with gets that one drip of sweat down the side of their face as they grin and pretend like they're okay with not talking.
So Anna and I have been questioning the beauty comment by asking "Yeah, but what about all those overhead wires? Whats up with those?" In the same tone, spoken in the same manner that we would say, "Who is the mayor in this town?"
Even in uber riche Montecito, they have overhead wires everywhere. If I was spending millions of dollars on a house and generating large sums in property taxes for the city, I'd want a clear view of the sky when I'm driving the Rover up the street.
Sure if they got rid of them there would be very little, cosmetically speaking, to complain about in this town. But they seem like an obvious fix and no one is complaining. Its just sooo nice here, why make it nicer?
We like our friend Graham's answer the best so far. No, he didn't get the question out of us by stating the obvious. Graham is our go to guy for all things Santa Barbara. He even knows the names of all the local politicians. I went to a speech by one and later saw her in one of the many town parades recently... still can't remember her name. I also do not know who the mayor is.
Why doesn't Santa Barbara pay to sink the overhead wires? "They spend all of their money on roundabouts" said Graham.
There are roundabouts everywhere in this town. I don't know how much a roundabout costs, but it can't be cheap. In the past, I have used roundabouts as an answer to all of Santa Barbara's problems. Homeless people? Build them a roundabout. Fires take out a neighborhood? Roundabout.
I don't know why the mayor here, whomever that may be, isn't in DC asking for stimulus money to sink the overhead wires. Think of the stimulusing of all those jobs sinking wires. Am I six months too late? Are there no more packages to be distributed?
We can probably scrape the cash together from tourist revenues. The city could somehow tap into that glossy river of diamonds.
Come to Santa Barbara and see the overhead wires, live the post-beach town lifestyle and have a picnic in a roundabout.
