Christopher Stong Bicycle Gourmet – Born at the Right Time – Part Three
Christopher Stong Bicycle Gourmet – Born at the Right Time – Part Three
Part Three brings us futher along the road of this saga. PARTS ONE and TWO may add to your understanding/enjoyment/desire to nominate me for the pulitzer.
Like Klimt inVienna, Paul was “born at the right time.” My take anyway – considering when I was born. But then isn’t every fascinating period of History we never lived through “the right time?” Especially when we know someone who did? (tee-shirt idea – “NOW is the right time!)
Paul knew(and turned down an offer to work with) the legendaryFrank Llyod Wright. Ditto Paola Solari the “visionary” who created (the World’s first?) “eco city” in the Arizona desert. However Paul did advise him. For free.
Peyote with the Indians? Commissions from Heads of State Worldwide? Rafting the Amazon? Designing affordable inner-city housing? Rapping with Kerouac? Been there. Done that. Got the tee-shirt.
The best sunsets at Chez Paul arrived courtesty of L.A. smog.(Probably the only benefit, n’est ce pas?) For whatever meterological reason the noxious gases that regularly caused L.A. schools to close – opened our eyes wider with a cavalcade of irridescent colors.This was our “apero entertainment” as we caught the last rays of the day.
With his mirror shades and full head of steely gray hair, Paul was every inch the Hollywood prototype of Worldly “tough guy.” Add the wirey frame and working man’s jeans, and it wasn’t hard to imagine this is how James Dean might have aged.
Paul didn’t say much during our “patio sunsets”. But, to paraphrase Spencer Tracy’s description of Katherine Hepburn, what he did say was “cherc.” Particularly about his first wife, Ravi. Clearly the great love of his life. A native of the Ivory Coast, she met Paul during his time there helping to create housing for the locals. As her’s was one of the families Paul had helped, she wanted to give him a thank you gift.But no cash in the cupboard.
So Ravi presented him with a family heirloom. Small. Fragile. With a unique understated beauty any artists would appreciate. A glass. A (soon to be) Whiskey glass. The one Paul now cradled fondly as he silently tracked it’s History. Bathed in sunset’s last gleaming.
