Letter: How The Seagulls Saw It

“Could you take my picture with this big handsome guy?”

Charlotte is, in one word, personality. She can walk up to a total stranger – which is what she was doing when she asked this question – and in mere seconds her request is granted and a friend is made.

Thinking the big handsome guy to which she was referring was me – that she wanted her picture taken with me – I smiled and reached out to put my arm around her but she was already snuggled beneath the arm of some big hairy creature whose yellow eyes and bulbous nose and lolling tongue and unshaven face was grotesque.

He was indeed big, but handsome?

Then Ms. Personality, tilting her head and flashing that impish grin of hers, pulled the big guy’s arm close as if she had found the love of her life.

I was not jealous. I mean, really?

The picture was taken, camera returned, and thank-you’s given, she and I sauntered arm in arm down the boardwalk on this beautiful afternoon, her silvered hair nestled next to mine.

She showed me the photos she had taken of the waterfront, the boats at moorage, and the far distant Olympic mountain range.

And the seagulls.

“See this one?” she said. “It looks like it’s giving its opinion.”

“About what?” I responded, playing along.

“Its opinion is that that big handsome guy you are with now is easier on the eyes than that big hairy guy you were with in that picture.’”

“Well, that’s good to know.”

“Yes,” she said, “but it was close.”

That’s my Charlotte.